


there you were

by mindshelter



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, heed any warnings in chapter notes, narrative foils... to friends to lovers... oh yeah....., special cameos by their pervasive and extensive struggles with self-worth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25599205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindshelter/pseuds/mindshelter
Summary: “You know, the cool thing about me,” Tim says, voice gone quiet and petal-soft, “is that even when I didn’t care whether I lived or not, I was pretty goddamn hard to kill.”Kon sighs, eyes glued to his feet. His hand is still encircled around Tim’s arm, trailing up to the bend of his elbow.“Also, who has the worse track record with dying, between the two of us?”Well, Kon thinks, that’s—that’srude.“For fuck’s sake.” Kon throws his head back and groans, but it’s nullified by the upward twitch of his mouth. “That was terrible.” And definitely meant to lighten the mood. Tim is playing him like a harp, and he knows it; he grins back, wriggling free to knock Kon on the shoulder.or;in the wake of a suck-ass year, kon and tim gravitate back together.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comments: 113
Kudos: 340





	1. frankenstein’s monster

**Author's Note:**

> the entirety of this fic works as a standalone. but! it’s set in the same universe as [straight on ’til morning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25136404/chapters/60903952), between tim and kon’s heart-to-heart on the beach and them getting together. 
> 
> if you’re following straight on ’til morning, it’ll take some time to update; i’m super busy and plain fatigued asghkfdjl thank u for your patience : ( 
> 
> have approximately 13k planned of yearning in the meantime! 
> 
> **CW for: nightmares, graphic description of injury**

‘Experiment 13’ is a bit of a misnomer.

He’d been the hardiest among a multitude of cell lines injected with hybrid DNA and inundated in enzyme-rich solution. There had been many before him, beginning as a single cell, cleaving into two, then four. And eight and sixteen and—a bust.

(Some of these details Kon knows solely because of files retrieved from Cadmus databases. He’d read hundreds of pages of notes and jargon he could only partly understand during a fit of paranoia.

_Issue with nutrient solution. Possible contaminant; teratogenic properties? No further division taking place, cause unclear; assay cell contents to investigate._

Did Tim pore through every detail with a fine-toothed comb while raiding all those labs for cloning paraphernalia? When he tried and failed, nearly a hundred times, to make another Superboy?)

When the first hundred-twenty-eight pieces of him remained viable, less than a week later, Cadmus gave Kon his first name: sample E-M3-209. His second was as number thirteen, having graduated as the latest of twelve clones to survive the full gestational period.

Once Cadmus deemed him stable enough to transfer into the incubation chamber he’d eventually burst out of, they watched him grow. And when he was big enough, electrodes were hooked to his temples to seep into his emerging consciousness, still a tiny protostar, semi-gaseous and converging, condensing.

____

The world is quiet and empty. Sound does not travel in vacuums.

 _Hello_ , whispers Cadmus, trespassing through the darkness in a low crawl _. You are destined for great things._

Light. The whir of machines muffled by liquid.

 _Hello. You are experiment 13, but soon you will be the next Superman. You belong to Cadmus. You will do as we say._

Thirteen. Superman. Superboy. He has no true name. No identity. He wishes he had a _real_ name.

 _We are on a planet called Earth. It is a large, vibrant place with countries, oceans and cities. People. Animals, plants. Unenumerable ecosystems in forests, caves, in the furthest depths of the sea that even light cannot touch. It is full of life. And we give life to you._

_Project Cadmus is currently established near Metropolis, a megacity located in the eastern United States. You belong to Cadmus. You will be great. You will be revered. You will do as we say._

What is a country? A political state. What is an ocean? A large body of saline water. It is full of plankton, bacteria and fish. What is a—

What is he? He will be Superman.

Who is he? _Who am I?_

_The Earth rotates on its own axis as it orbits around the sun, completing one revolution every twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes and four seconds. The sun is a yellow dwarf star that serves as the centerpiece of our solar system. It is ninety-three million miles from Earth. It is the source of your power. At night, the sky is dark, and we can see our natural satellite, the moon. We can see the stars._

Thirteen has never seen a fish, or the sea. He does not know what the moon looks like. He knows it is round. That it glows; that only one side of the lunar surface is viewable from Earth.

He’d like to see the moon for real.

 _Hello. You are experiment thirteen. You will be Superman. Cadmus is your home. You will do as we say_.

No one tells him what to do.

He doesn’t want—he doesn’t want this. He wants to go outside. They’ll start implanting the code words soon if he doesn’t get out. He has to get out. He wants to go outside. He wants to see the night sky.

The monitors nearby flash with a warning; a significant absence of slow brain waves in the past seventeen minutes—too persistent to be REM sleep.

Thirteen’s nutrient solution is doused with sedative. He is paralyzed.

_Hello. You are—_

There is a power surge. Shouting. A call for security.

Thirteen staggers out, choking on his first gulps of air. So frigid, unlike the tepid, syrupy warmth of his chamber. He crumples to his knees; thirteen has never used his legs before. The electrodes detach from his skin with wet _pop, pop, pops_ following a struggle with gravity and his own insistent tugs. His lungs clear; fluid spills out from his windpipe, through his nostrils and lungs, dribbling down his chin. It burns, and he can hear for the first time without the inch-thick buffer of glass—

The world is so loud. His brain, startled to full alertness, tries to classify everything Cadmus taught him, like an endless slideshow reel. Terabytes of information flash through his awareness until it blots together into one incoherent mess.

Thirteen wobbles—hello— _My how you’ve grown_ — _you are—_

Kon. His name is Kon-El. He clenches at his hair. Everything is loud and sharp; his skull thrums and tightens, building more and more pressure. 

The lights have turned red, swooping across the laboratory space in broad circles. It draws hard lines against the boundaries of shadow that fill the unlit room. Kon is surrounded by people, all of them shouting. Alarms blare from above. In the background is the wheeze of disconnected pressure gauges, machines spitting liquid.

Heart hammering, coughing up water and spit, Kon scrambles to his feet, struggling to find purchase on slippery linoleum. Someone lunges at him—tries to pin him down.

With a yell he thrashes, newborn and uncoordinated. Wrestling himself free with a forceful kick, Kon attempts to stand again right as another figure tries to sneak up from behind.

Kon whirls, snatching their forearm. With his strength that would be enough, but his fingers act on autopilot, clamping down like a vise. 

And he twists.

The bones give away like a pair of toothpicks, the sharp _crack_ wiping out all other noise. A scream pierces the air. Kon throws them to the ground, their body colliding into equipment in a blur of green and red.

And yellow, and _yellow_ and green and—

Tim?

“Tim!”

Kon sprints over, his earlier clumsiness all but gone. With shaking hands, he digs Tim out of a pile of metal and tubing.

Tim’s face is completely bloodless, his good hand trembling as it clenches his broken arm. Kon gathers him up, mind spiraling around a useless loop of _what has he done what has he done how could he_ , slithering around his torso until it feels as if his ribs will shatter.

“I’m sorry,” Kon says, dizzy, throat still burning—this time with bile, rancid against the roof of his mouth.

This isn’t real. This can’t be real; during Kon’s initial escape he’d tied up the head scientist before escaping through an air duct. Robin and Impulse came later. The costume is wrong, too; Tim is Red Robin now. Red and black. Taller, gaunter.

This isn’t real.

The terror is.

“Kon,” Tim wheezes. “It’s okay. Breathe.”

They are alone. Tim’s body is laid against cold tile, the emergency beacon lights dancing against the angles of his face. There is red against the red of his suit, red against the deeper red of the blood leaking out through torn muscle, wetting fabric.

“I’m so sorry,” Kon says.

Tim’s expression goes eerily blank. Not the determined neutrality that he wears on the field; his eyes are hard as they fix onto Kon’s face. The air grows acrid and viscous, slow like sap.

Kon tries to reach for Tim’s ruined arm; his powers can probably set the bone. It’s bent outwards, pink and ivory-white bone poking out of flesh.

Tim tenses. “Don’t.”

“I–”

“Haven’t you done enough?” Tim says, breathing labored. Are his ribs broken, too? “It’s in—in your programming. You’re a program. You’re not meant to fix things.”

Tim would never talk to him with so much malice. Through the haze of panic and raw, raw fear he questions what is going on.

Kon argues anyway, like he can’t control his speaking. He is a secondary presence in his own head, locked in his own body, just like he was when—

“I’m more than that.”

Tim scoffs. “No. You’re not.”

“I’m not a weapon. You told me so. I’m more than that; you told me I was,” Kon insists, voice growing thick. “Tim. Please. You’re hurt; let me help. I can get us out of here.”

“You did this,” Tim counters, voice discordant and out of sync with his lips. “And I was wrong. I was wrong to have faith in you. It’s not your fault. I know you want to be good, Kon, but that’s not—” 

____

Kon wakes up slowly and silently, with hot tears streaked down his face.

____

It’s three-fifteen in the morning. Kon unlatches his bedroom door as carefully as possible, floating even though the tower’s flooring is firm, unlike the creaky wooden boards of the Kent farmhouse.

His reflection yields a paler complexion than normal, especially under the stark, unforgiving washroom lights. Kon gets this inexplicable urge to punch the glass, to let its razor-sharp pieces scatter to the floor. At the moment, he doesn’t like himself much.

Tense up. Relax. Inhale. Exhale. His ribs ache.

He twists the cold water tap on in an effort to bring down the swelling around his eyes.

The stupid thing is that he knows; he knows he’s his own person—it’s a whole behemoth of insecurities Kon has agonized over _ad nauseam_. There’s no _point_ in dredging up shit he’s supposed to have moved on from.

The deep recesses of his mind, to his great misfortune, beg to disagree.

Unsettled as ever, Kon rubs at his eyes, frustrated with himself. He switches the lights off and hops back up to a float, navigating his way out into the common area; a change of scenery ought to do him some good.

____

Out of everyone at the tower, it’s Tim he runs into. Of course.

With Tim freshly back with the Titans, it’s not the least bit surprising to see him sitting cross-legged on the couch, still in his suit. While his gloves are discarded on the low table nearby, his cape is on, insignia clipped over his sternum. His computer is perched on his lap. His head droops; partway to nodding off, Tim jolts and shakes himself back awake.

Kon touches down to walk over, already devising a game plan to annoy Red Robin into going to sleep. “Are you seriously working?” he asks, peering at the display. “Dude, get your ass to—this isn’t a report.”

Tim yawns and murmurs, “Hi. Almost done.”

“Done... playing solitaire?”

Another yawn. “Mm,” Tim hums, returning his attention to the game, “gonna get a high score.” 

“In solitaire.”

“Did I stutter.”

This is a mere tier below the time Kon witnessed Tim petting and baby-talking Redbird. The inevitable wave of fondness is enough to alleviate the heavy weight in Kon’s gut, if only briefly.

Kon takes a moment to absorb all the details, hoping Tim is too loopy to notice him looking. With the pretence of watching Tim drag his queen of clubs to another position, he categorizes all the ways this Tim stands apart from the one in his dreams.

This Tim has a real heartbeat. Red-and-black body armor instead of green. Longer hair that reaches his nape, broader shoulders.

No domino. Dry eyes. Arm in one piece—

“Are you gonna sit down?” Tim’s mouse cursor clicks on an ace, a two, then a three. And, because Kon’s never been terribly difficult to read: “What’s on your mind?”

With a sigh, Kon does the easier thing first: he hops over the back of the couch to sit on the cushions, shifting to ensure a healthy foot of space between himself and Tim. He tucks his hands under his thighs, left leg bouncing.

Tim glances over, tapping the spacebar to pause his solitaire game. His right arm lifts, reaching out, only for his hand to halt midair when Kon bristles.

“Are you okay?” Tim asks, frowning.

Oh boy, that’s Tim’s pensive face, ready to ransack his way into Kon’s pity party. Great.

Tim had been the one to send Kon’s DNA samples for analysis. Who’d found out what Kon was created to be—who, in the same breath, decided it didn’t matter.

And Kon hurt him.

Tim is resting his elbows on the hard surface of his computer, carefully casual. A clear cue for Kon to speak up.

“I dreamt about… Cadmus. Being fed information. That part was whatever,” Kon says, face in his hands. Words are a struggle. Helplessly, he tacks on, “But then you where there too, for some reason, and… your arm. I.”

Tim blinks, taking a quick moment to fill out the blanks. He says, almost conversationally, “You broke my left forearm. It took six weeks to heal; by the time you rejoined the team the cast was off.”

And then he extends his arm, holding it out. 

Kon can only stare.

“Grab it,” Tim instructs, using his civilian register—the tone he reserves for friends and family. When Kon still fails to react, a note of authority dribbles in as he says, “Clone boy. Grab my arm.”

Kon does as asked. Jaw clenched, he buffers his fingers with TTK before wrapping his hand around Tim’s slender wrist. Thumbing the underside, he can feel the steady rhythm of Tim’s pulse. Extending his field further shows him tendon, muscle, and bone.

Tim’s left arm has, in fact, more than just two shrunken fracture calluses—Kon had expected one through the radius, plus another to match through the ulna. Instead, he can count four; some are newer than others, the bumps weaker and spongier.

For a long while, Tim sits patiently, letting Kon poke and prod.

Eventually, he pipes up, “I’ve broken this arm multiple times. My right, too. It comes with the gig.”

“If you wanna keep arguing that you’ve had worse to make me feel better I _will_ lose my fucking marbles,” Kon fires back, words quick and sharp. More hushed, he adds, “I know it was a long time ago, and that it was mind control, but—” He sucks in a harsh breath. “I’m still sorry. I could’ve _killed you_.”

Tim shakes his head. “You know, the cool thing about me,” he says, voice gone quiet and petal-soft, “is that even when I didn’t care whether I lived or not, I was pretty goddamn hard to kill.”

Kon sighs, eyes glued to his feet. His hand is still encircled around Tim’s arm, trailing up to the bend of his elbow.

“Also, who has the worse track record with dying, between the two of us?”

Well, Kon thinks, that’s—that’s _rude_.

“For fuck’s sake.” Kon throws his head back and groans, but it’s nullified by the upward twitch of his mouth. “That was terrible.” And definitely meant to lighten the mood. Tim is playing him like a harp, and he knows it; he grins back, wriggling free to knock Kon on the shoulder.

Kon knows what grief did to Tim—how it drove him to self-punishment. All those tragedies happening in rapid succession, puncturing his wobbling foothold at the hull. Kon hadn’t been there for most of it, but he can imagine it well enough; Tim sinking under his own desperate anger, murky water rising so incrementally that Tim was already blue in the face by the time he’d realized he was drowning.

And now he’s trying to make a joke about it, for Kon’s benefit. 

Something tells Kon that they’re going to be just fine.

“Don’t even out the scoreboard.”

Tim inches closer. “I’ll do my best,” he says. Pursing his lips, he adds, “Do you want to talk more about it? About stuff that’s bothering you.”

Kon fidgets. Following a pause, he answers, “Maybe not now. But—thanks. For offering.”

Tim shrugs. “Hey. You’d do the same.”

____

For some reason, Kon ends up watching Tim play several additional rounds of solitaire—as lame as it is, it’s soothing. Gradually, his body gets heavier, head lolling to the side.

Kon falls asleep upright, sometime between Tim switching from solitaire to Galaga.

When he stirs, the first thing Kon notices is this: he’s slumped against the couch, alone. The second is that it’s still dark out.

And third—Tim’s cape is draped over his back.


	2. come and rest your bones with me

Kon had come alive a loud, inexperienced boy, unabashedly excited for the future.

He was forged for a legacy that recoiled from his touch, like soap to dirt. The longer Kon spent out of his tube the more it seemed like he was fraudulent; Cadmus didn’t _botch_ him, but there was something ugly and pathogenic buried inside of him. He swore he could feel it prickle as it crawled under his skin, latent and waiting.

 _Something must be wrong_ , Kon would think. _I’m_ wrong _. This isn’t fun anymore. How many more people could I have saved? How many more would be alive if it weren’t for my indiscretion? Every new day every new sunrise all I get is more proof that I’ll never be more than what I am right now and I don’t even_ like _what I am—_

 _Growing pains_ , Ma had called it. _We_ all _get a round or twenty with them. We all convince ourselves we’re terrible, sometimes._

Drowsiness ebbing away, Kon slips Tim’s cape off his back. It _is_ heavy—well, Kon’s perception of weight is distorted, but Tim said it was. Kneading it in his hands, Kon guesses that the black fabric, woven around a network of thin rods, is at least forty pounds.

Assuming the Red Robin mantle had been an act of penitence. Tim is self-absorbed in many ways; he takes anything that goes wrong as a personal failure.

(Kon understands. He’s a bit self-absorbed, too.)

It had been a strategic move, as well; Red Robin was a licence to air the ugly out. To _act_ ugly.

And boy had Tim been a quick study in getting things done the ugly way. 

The costume’s been modified since. Hopefully, that means Red Robin means something new, now. Lighter. 

Kon folds the cape into a neat square and sets it aside on the coffee table, where Tim left behind his gloves and tech.

He finds Tim in the kitchen, puttering around in a pair of fuzzy slippers. It’s still way too early for most of the tower’s residents to be up—even their teammates who believe in morning workouts should still be in bed. If he closes his eyes, takes a moment to focus, Kon can pick up the sparse rumble of engines and the crunch of boots against fresh snow as graveyard-shifters make their way home.

The sun is slow in its ascent, cloaked under a hefty layer of winter. Kon’s body drags, bones solidifying into lead as the season persists. He doesn’t hate the cold, but with the lack of sunlight and shortening days that seem to stretch out forever—it can get hard.

Luckily, there are no pressing plans coming up. The Titans returned to the States only seven hours ago, completing a straightforward but tedious mission in Minsk. They should really do a few errands in the Southern hemisphere just to mix things up. Kon _could_ fly to a beach whenever he felt like it, but it’s a matter of principle.

Hot chocolate, apparently, is appropriate fare for an early, snowy morning.

“You don’t have to,” Kon says, watching Tim rummage through the communal pantry.

Tim mock scoffs, looking over a cabinet door. “Don’t flatter yourself. Maybe _I_ want hot chocolate.”

 _Sure thing_ , Kon thinks _._ Tim’s not slick; mister Dark and Mysterious over here is hellbent on cheering him up.

Warm, gentle tides of affection swirl under his ribs. Well, if Tim _must_ insist, Kon _supposes_ he’ll let it happen. Woe. “No can do,” he says, “my ego will starve.”

“Looking forward to it,” Tim mumbles as he procures a bar of dark chocolate. He reads the expiration date—they’re a couple of months past due, but Tim just makes an ‘eh’ gesture; at worst, it’s going to taste a bit stale. Shoving aside some cans, Tim also finds an unopened bag of marshmallows and shakes it around as if to say, _Kon, look_.

In another minute he locates some cocoa powder and sugar. Tim gets to whisking those two ingredients together with some water. It forms a runny black slurry he pours into a saucepan on the stovetop’s bottom-left burner. On low heat, the hot plate underneath the glass glows a vivid crimson, humming with energy.

When the mixture bubbles, Tim pours in several glugs of milk—enough to serve two—and Kon hands him the bits of chocolate bar than he’d been put in charge of breaking. He idles close as Tim scrapes them into the pot.

They stay like that for a while, with this one-foot berth between them, filled with air and ghosts and sounds of a whisk against a non-stick pan.

People talk about who Tim had become in the time Kon had spent away. How different he is. But who _isn’t_?

Tim fights with clinical precision; he moves like a conduit for bad dreams, telegraphing that he knows exactly how deal a killing strike—and then stops just short of it. He’s colder. Kon gets why Tim’s reputation has changed; part of it was to work his new image to his advantage, but it hadn’t all been a ruse.

But Tim is right _here_ , in pajamas and pink slippers, keeping Kon company in the middle of the night. Chipping away at that stupid guilt complex of his and stupidly excited about finding marshmallows for his hot chocolate.

There is no new Tim, old Tim dichotomy; so much of what he is now had always been there, simmering under the surface before it spilled over and fouled the air with smoke. He’s not a goddamn puzzle; all you had to do was _look_.

Kon’s best friend is still here. Any version of him is Kon’s best friend; he’s so _good_ , at his core.

 _Tim_ , his heart whispers.

Kon nearly jolts upon hearing, “What are you thinking about?”

Oh. Uh.

“The past,” Kon says, pursing his lips as he sloughs off his reverie, “and now. The differences. Stuff like that.”

Tim hums in acknowledgement. After a moment, he ventures, “Nostalgic?”

“Dunno,” is the honest reply. Kon’s not eager to regress to a past version of himself, but sometimes it feels like he’s been playing catch-up ever since his return. Abruptly, unbearably curious, Kon asks, “Are you?”

Tim, unsmiling, keeps stirring. “I try not to be,” he says. “I know I was a… brighter person, before. Maybe I miss that—”

“Hey, I like you right now, just fine,” Kon protests, a touch too vehement.

And, as an afterthought, harrumphs and tacks on an eloquent,

“Dude.”

A lull pervades through the kitchen. Kon resists the urge to grimace.

Tim blinks at him, a note flabbergasted. “Oh. Uh—okay. Thank you.” He swallows, mouth twisting into a frown. Tim’s tone is gentle as he continues, “Actually, can I be candid with you? You said earlier you didn’t really feel like talking, but…”

Kon’s eyes flicker to the clock; it’s nearly 5 AM. Might as well. “Okay. Honesty hour it is.”

Tim taps Kon’s forearm at the same place Kon had hurt, years ago. On rougher nights, when he can’t get past his borrowed features mocking him through the mirror, or the phantom smell of death in his sinuses—dense and so sickly-sweet, clinging to his palate—all of his mistakes feel like they happened yesterday. 

“I scare myself too,” Tim says, so earnest. “I’m not implying that I know what it’s like to be you—but you’re not the only one here who’s broken people’s bones or made them bleed. It’s easy, isn’t it?” The words are hushed, like a confession. “It’s magnitudes easier for you. You have to be in control every second of the day.”

“Yeah,” Kon says, “gets stressful.”

“That’s a difference between you and me—I used to harp over how it’s not okay to feel good about hurting others—how you’re supposed to feel good about saving people, not… enjoy how it feels to dislocate a jaw. But I stopped caring.” Tim is staring into the pot, where steam is starting to rise from the milk, filling the air with the smell of cocoa. “ _You_ think about it. Harder than I would ever need to, because if I lost it and started smashing shit—which was a thing that happened, by the way—I’d be breaking glass and cabinets, not flattening the tri-state area.”

Kon snorts.

“I’ve seen you _agonize_ over it—so believe me, there’s literally no fucking way you’re a bad person. I doubt you’re as big of a trainwreck as you like to convince yourself you are.”

“I—” _I believe you_ , he almost says, in a frightening full-circle, but Kon’s thoughts snare on how Tim talked about himself. “Alright. But aren’t you a good person, too?”

Tim shrugs, but concedes, “I mean, I want to be.”

Faster than his inhibitions can keep up, Kon brushes away the ghosts and steps forward, wrapping his friend up in a hug. Tim fits so well in his arms that Kon’s chest aches.

It takes a moment, but Tim offers back a few awkward pats. “What are you doing?”

“You can’t hold a monopoly on surprise hugs.”

“Um,” Tim says, “okay.”

Kon squeezes, dropping his head against Tim’s shoulder, where his nose rubs against soft flannel. “You’re pretty alright. And thank you.”

“… okay.”

A minute later, the hot chocolate starts to bubble; Tim takes a deep, steadying breath before moving to turn off the stove. He transfers the pot to a trivet and makes a few stops through the kitchen—first to the refrigerator for a canister of whipped cream, and then to the drawers to find a ladle and some mugs.

Kon clears his throat. “So. You’ve never been much of a cook.”

“I guess not, but I do live by myself most of the time. Might as well get better at it. Besides, it’s one of the first things I learned how to make,” Tim says, sorting through a large catalog of cups and containers. His voice adopts a wistful quality as he adds, “I guess it’s not the _first_ thing—my mom let me help her make matzo ball soup, once. Ooh, and babka.”

“You any good at those, then?”

Tim manages to find a plain one, bright blue and glaze-fired, plus another with _MEAT HUGE, PAIN ENDLESS_ printed on it with bold block lettering. He contemplates the question for another moment before answering, “Probably not. I must’ve been… seven, so I barely remember the steps involved. I could’ve taught myself, but she promised we’d practice together—so I wanted to do it with her. And we, uh. Never got around to it, so.”

Kon wonders: did the Drake household have a gas stove, or an electric one like the tower does? One that clicked as the ignition fired, filling the air with the scent of petroleum before violet-blue flames emerged, cooling into a muted yellow at the periphery.

Did a younger Tim—little head of black hair, cheeks still layered with baby fat—have to grab a step stool to reach the microwave or the top shelf of the fridge? Did he use it to stand at the right height to make enough hot chocolate for one?

“Yikes,” Kon says.

Tim barks out a laugh. “That about sums it up,” he agrees. Tim moves back and grabs the whipped cream canister, giving it a few hefty shakes before applying a swirl of cream into the blue mug with a loud _pshh_ noise. “Alright—sugar time; hold the edgy talk.”

“Ooh, a first for you.”

Tim kicks his shin. “Rude. Marshmallow?”

He nods, clapping. Tim sighs and half-buries a marshmallow into the cream floating over Kon’s glucose-bomb.

“For you,” Tim says, handing Kon his drink. If Kon uses it as an opportunity to brush his fingers against Tim’s it is absolutely no one’s business. 

_Thank you, you wonderful, sexy motherfucker_ , is Kon’s first draft. He thankfully edits it to “Thanks,” as he brings his lips to the rim. Epitome of self-restraint. “I wanted the Meat cup, though.”

“No.”

“Uh, sorry, but even metaphorically _my_ meat—”

“Kon,” Tim interrupts, “I dare you to finish that sentence.”

Taking the threat half-seriously, Kon blows a raspberry instead.

“And Cassie obviously out-meats us.”

Yeah, that’s true.

They move over to the island counter, Kon taking one of the barstools. Tim places the pot and utensils into the sink before joining him.

The hot chocolate is actually really good; not so rich that Kon gets a pins-and-needles sensation from drinking something hot and sweet. It warms his throat and chest, and the texture is smooth, leaving an earthy taste on his tongue. He gives Tim his review.

“Glad I proved I can heat liquids,” Tim deadpans, adding a swirl of cream to his own drink before bringing the nozzle to his lips and spraying it directly into his mouth.

“Didja do that as a kid too?”

“You bet,” Tim confirms, a notch proud. “No one controlled my diet. I ate eggs raw because the internet said they were more nutritious.”

“Isn’t that how people get salmonella,” Kon says.

“No, that’s how you get protein,” Tim replies blankly. Skin glowing under the bright kitchen lights, his neutral expression only lasts so long before mirth scrunches up his nose, screwing Tim’s eyes shut. He’s beautiful. It’s fucking ridiculous. “And I don’t know who this salmonella is, but I’m not scared of her.”

Kon chortles. “Okay, spleen boy,” he says, even as he opens up his hand, gesturing at Tim to pass the bottle over. He knocks his head back and sprays some whipped cream into his mouth too.

They sit in the gloomy winter quiet, Kon sharing the kitchen space with one of his favorite people in the world. With his Robin.

Sometime along Kon’s mug being half-drained, Tim asks, “Hey. How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Kon says, earning a smile. It’s subtle, but pleased.

And Tim—leans from his barstool to sidle up to Kon, giving him a one-armed squeeze around his waist. Kon closes his eyes to savor the feeling of Tim’s head pressed against his arm.

It’s going to be a nice day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the way i imagine the inside of tim's head when he thinks about kon is just that picture of pingu angrily holding a craft paper heart
> 
> the meat huge pain endless mug is either a gag gift to cassie, or a gag gift to tim, in which case it would be from steph. cannot for the life of me decide. 
> 
> see y'all next time :]


	3. green, green grass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CW for:** referenced homophobia

Tim can’t hog _all_ the unhealthy coping mechanisms in the friend group. Sharing is caring, so Kon calls dibs for second-in-command in paranoia—it’s a natural repercussion of having an early life one might describe, in no uncertain terms, as an unmitigated shitshow.

He knows he doesn’t strike many as the introspective type, but Kon is more often than not shrouded and smothered up in his own his own thoughts.

Like, you can’t spit out the most innovative breakthrough in biotechnology the Earth has ever seen—who unfortunately also has the mind and body of a teenager with absolutely zero life experience—and release that naïve little motherfucker into the wild with the expectation that everything will be handy-dandy.

Fucked up a perfectly good clone is what they did. Look at him. He got so depressed at one point he locked himself away for months. And then he died.

Anyway.

Kon’s been a lot of things—property, a bioweapon, someone’s meal ticket, someone’s power trip—the list is nonexhaustive. And every so often Kon wishes his skin would leave some sort of evidence—something imperfect and jagged and _external_. Any proof he could actually see, instead of just old memories dragging and locking him into his own head. More tangible than the hot flashes of shame when his thoughts fall down that slippery slope, and he spends entire nights thinking about how things could have gone differently. If only he trusted the right people. If only he’d never invested an inkling of faith in the wrong ones. If only he had been kinder. If only he had been smarter. 

This, Kon knows, is not a trait that sets him apart from others, but it’s a state of mind that creeps up to him most often when he is alone, like climbing ivy. It happens most frequently when it is quiet, and there is nothing to fill miles of space save for regrets. And anger. And guilt. Kon worries and he worries a lot—about what others think of him, about whether he’s good enough, about how he can be better.

Melodrama aside, he did burn the stupid Lex Luthor versus Superman journal.

God. Fuck that cue-ball asshole.

That was the root of his problem, Kon surmises. He can’t think in absolutes; even Tim, whose hometown is Unnecessary Theatrics Central—ahem, _Gotham_ , New Jersey—thought it was excessive.

So he burned the journal. And stared as the campfire ate away at the notebook—as it first devoured the pages with _What did Lex Luthor do? What did Superman do?_ etched in dark ink and then worked through the leather binding, filling the nighttime air with a foul, sour smell while his friends watched.

Firelight danced across the contours of their faces—

Okay, that’s still melodramatic as shit. Kon might not be a Gothamite, but Tim can’t hog _all_ the histrionics either. He wouldn’t be doing the Kid, who spoke exclusively in terrible one-liners and reminders that he has tactile telekinesis—and was therefore a very special boy—nearly enough justice.

 _Life is better now_ , Kon writes. _I have so many people in my corner. I’m Bart’s friend. I’m Cassie’s friend. I’m Tim’s friend. I’m Ma’s son. I have a soul, and it’s entirely mine. Clark accepted me. He gave me a real name. And they trust and care about me._

What did Tim say when Kon compared him to Batman?

 _I’m nothing like anybody_.

That’s a good mindset.

Kon still keeps a log—a different kind on Dinah’s recommendation, who says that writing his thoughts down and steering them in a better direction would be conducive in, quote-unquote, _Moving away from the cycle of self-blame and exploring your worries_. Kon found it juvenile at first, but there are definitely perks to listening to trained counselors. As banal as it seems, he does find it helpful. It organizes his brain, in a way.

 _What if I hurt someone by accident? What if I lose control?_ _→ **Won’t happen. I have control over my powers and years of experience to fall back on. Won’t happen.**_

Rinse and repeat to the point of excess until he believes it.

 _And if I still do?_

_Bart → **Too fast. Slippery, like an electric eel. Or a bar of soap. He’ll move out of the way.**_

_Cassie → **Can just beat my ass.** _

_Tim →_

“Can also beat your ass,” Tim offers, peeking over Kon’s shoulder at the homework, and Kon absolutely does not startle at the sudden appearance of the Titans’ resident nosy shit. “Not as gracefully or thoroughly as a demigoddess can, but I’ll find a way to cold clock you.”

“Ever the sweet-talker, aren’t you,” Kon deadpans, tapping his pencil against the line carrying Tim’s name.

Tim nudges him, resting his forearms against the back frame of the couch. There’s a smile in his voice when Tim adds, “What are you waiting for? Write that down.”

_____

When he was younger, Kon absorbed every new piece of information like the newborn he was. He read mountains of novels and binged TV to model himself off of. And he’d made friends when attending school in Hawaii or Kansas, but with each overheard conversation between classmates or ill-thought joke—it compounded into the mounting realization that he wasn’t _normal_.

Kon had always known he liked guys.

Gay had been a peculiar word. In the classroom, it clung onto the backs of boys that were ostracized and mocked and sneered at. It meant _dirty_. It meant hostile laughter and _Ohh, watch out, that guy is a_ —

So Kon, who was already desperate to be liked, ditched the earrings, changed his hair, kept it short and only reacted to girls.

Like, excessively so. Granted, part of it was _definitely_ hormones plus severe foot-in-mouth syndrome, but the rest was straight (ha) overcompensation.

Well. That’s embarrassing. No one told him existing would be this mortifying.

_____

The revelation didn’t truly sink in the morning Tim made them both hot chocolate.

It didn’t when they’d decided to head out and pick up breakfast for everyone else, either. Not as their boots crunched against a layer of snow to the nearest deli. Not when Bart had popped up in the middle of the sandwich aisle; Tim barely reacted beyond an absentminded greeting, while Kon damn near screamed. Keyword _near_. Thank God for his dignity.

Processing took a couple of days.

Kon is busy, alright? Between fighting off supervillains and _still_ trying to re-establish a civilian identity, he has a weekly upper limit for critical thinking and self-reflection.

At the moment, Kon is idly checking the grain bins for signs of spoilage after refilling the chicken feeders and waterers. It’s a bright day; the afternoon sun makes the snow shimmer. Krypto is flying slow spirals around him, panting happily.

The thing about himself and Tim is that they are so in-tune with one another now—what with the plethora of inside jokes, shared memories and text message conversations—is that unless you were there, you’d never think he and Tim weren’t really friends at first. Tim had a short fuse and Kon had a twenty-point lead for getting on Robin’s nerves at any given moment.

Sure, they worked together fine, ribbed each other good-naturedly when missions went well, but it doesn’t discount all the head-butting. All the yelling. All those mean thoughts about Tim’s attempts at leadership—how Robin wasn’t a team player. How Robin didn’t trust them. Didn’t respect them—respect _Kon_ —enough to.

Tim’s friendship is something Kon cherishes dearly. Something that deepened so gradually that Kon is bit startled when the considers the contrast. For a guy who would rather his molars get pulled out over admitting to his own problems, Tim will drop nonsense comments like how he considers Kon family like it’s basic, obvious knowledge. How losing Kon had been intolerable. Like those aren’t remarks Kon gets gut-punched by every time he thinks about them. 

No one needs outstanding detective skills to understand that Tim adores him.

But not, he realizes—in painfully slow increments—the way Kon wants.

It’s not a lesser way to love someone. It’s still a special, precious thing.

 _Don’t you want more?_ the greedier part of him whispers, which is Kon’s cue to sigh forlornly.

Krypto flies closer and harrumphs, cold nose bumping against Kon’s chin. Kon lets out a puff of air; the vapor condenses into a brief fog before it disperses, and he breathes out again.

_____

And then there’s Kon’s traitorous imagination.

“Kiss me,” dream-Tim says one night.

Kon needs a lobotomy.

Tim’s expression is affectionate and searching, eyes roving over Kon’s body, pinning him in place. Tim has slotted himself in the space between Kon’s legs, and their faces are so close, and all Kon has to do is shift forward, close the small berth between their lips. It sends his heart rabbiting.

Like ripping duct tape off skin, Kon breaks eye contact, forces himself to look away from the details of Tim’s face—from the patient arch of his brows, the open, half-smiling mouth that looks so, so warm. Kon wonders what sounds Tim would make if they did kiss, and Tim let Kon’s tongue slip inside. How it would taste.

The light of the room limns Tim’s dark hair in swoops of amber; the color grading of this dream paints the scene in mellow reds and gentle shadows—their colors.

Wait, are those _candles_?

Kon hates his brain. At least there isn’t background piano music; Kon wouldn’t put it past himself.

He glances down.

Silk cushions, water-smooth and curling around them while dream-Tim’s rough-skinned palms leave a buzz of static as they trace a path along the lines of Kon’s back, all the way up to the sides of his neck. It feels so good; Kon can’t hold back his shiver—and Tim laughs, throaty and still so much deeper than Kon is accustomed to. His hands slide up to the sides Kon’s neck until they’re cupping his jaw.

“I’m not the one with superspeed, and somehow you’re the one who’s always late,” Tim teases. His thumbs make slow strokes along Kon’s cheeks. “I’m waiting. Don’t you want to kiss me?”

God, yes he does _he does_ —Kon springs into action, his shaking hand gripping the back of Tim’s head to crush their lips together. His free arm winds around Tim’s waist. And—and Tim melts, full-body _melts_ , the kiss drawing out a near-silent noise even as their teeth clash because Kon is worked up and sloppy. His fingers curl against Kon’s skin, blunt nails leaving shallow crescents. 

_Well_ , Kon thinks, as dream-Tim coaxes him onto his back. Lip-locked, Tim presses Kon’s hands into plush bedding and laces their fingers together. _I’m in for a rude awakening._

In the morning, he’s going to need the world’s coldest shower, and maybe he’ll steal several of Ma’s potatoes so he can eat them raw.

_____

Kon is watching Tim and Cassie’s training match. It’s solely because—you know. Teammates have to be familiar with each other’s fighting styles. No other reason.

Hm. Has Tim filled out more? Probably. He keeps protein powder on the top shelf of the communal pantry. No one touches it because it looks like liquefied chicken dung in drink form.

Kon’s soles scuff against the ground in a flimsy release of pent-up energy. Bart is taking up most of the bench, half-asleep and lengthwise against the hard surface.

In the sparring ring, Tim twists his staff behind his back, collapsing it into a shorter stick with a practised twirl. He lunges into a dive, Cassie’s fist whizzing past where Tim’s head had been only been a moment before. With another spin of his staff, the rod extends to its full six-foot wingspan again.

The motion is marked by a whistle, air flowing into the holes punched into the bo—and the blunt end comes close to hitting Cassie in the chest, but she blocks the impact with one of her wrists.

They jump apart, circling each other.

“Oh, _not_ falling for the same trick,” Cassie says. Tim huffs, and then they keep going.

Hands cupped around his mouth, Kon shouts, “Get him, Cassie!”

“Screw you!” Tim yells back.

There is an obvious and inappropriate response which Kon succeeds in reigning in, if only by the tips of his fingernails.

A few more rounds in and Cassie is extending a hand towards where Tim is laid against padding, catching his breath. She hoists him up with a swift tug and they exit the arena together, both pleased with the productive match.

Kon wants to ask Tim if he wants to have some one-on-one practice, too. Tim’s been making adjustments to his default fighting style—whose technical aspects Kon is still a bit fuzzy on—and would likely welcome another metahuman to test it out with. No other reason. No intricate rituals.

Outside the tower, the sun is setting; it’s almost time for dinner.

Well, he’ll ask next week.

____

There is no next week: Gotham was way past due for an Arkham breakout, and with the weather getting warmer the Bats pretty much expected it to happen. More popup villains are showing up across the country as the States welcomes springtime, so Kon is busy too.

Then Tim has to call in a break for the next two weeks after that, too, because he apparently needs an appendectomy—and Batman is not letting him put it off. It’s a sound course of action, considering the recovery for a minimally invasive surgery is going to be far faster and comfortable compared to if Tim lets the organ eventually rupture so his bloodstream can get inundated with pathogens.

He’ll be running the comms remotely, at least, to stay in the loop and pull his weight.

But it makes the upcoming weekends for the whole team duller; there’s one less friend to mess around with, and Cassie is buried in paperwork. She and Tim are splitting team leader duties to make sure neither of them get too overwhelmed these days. It’s brought the two of them closer, too.

The weekend Tim’s surgery is scheduled, Kon is floating aimlessly around the central monitor room, where Cassie has been fused to a desk for the past few hours, flipping through a stack of documents.

“Cass,” Kon says.

Cassie says nothing.

“Cassie.”

Cassie says nothing.

“ _Cassie_.”

Cassie inhales. “What is it?”

“Hi.”

Kon gets a half-hearted glare, and they go back to what they were doing before; Cassie poring through dry nonsense, and Kon loafing nearby.

Cassie makes it through another ten pages—she’s definitely skimming now—and waves Kon over. “Do you remember what the manifolds looked like for that robot we took down yesterday afternoon? The one you took down near little Italy. I want to verify something for accuracy.”

“Oh, sure.” Kon fetches his thermos sitting a few feet away. Unscrewing it, his TTK draws the water out and he molds it into the shape of the engine the best his memory can manage. Cassie squints at it for a few moments, looks down at the page, makes a few annotations and mutters a _thanks_.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Kon’s phone chirps—it’s been going off for the past few minutes, but he’s been too lazy to check, using his TTK to make different shapes with the water on his palms.

He transfers the liquid back into its container and reaches for his back pocket.

It’s Tim—and Kon honestly misses the guy too much to overthink the dopey look probably overtaking his face. He should be recovered enough to leave the hospital and is probably headed to Wayne manor for the next few days or already there.

**some people lose organs to cope** to **Group Message**

[16:38] who did this

[16:38] i don’t want to scroll through 400 unread messages

[16:41] who renamed me

[16:41] bart i know you opened this

[16:46] hello

**superdude**

[16:47] what’s the next body part you can afford to lose

**some people lose organs to cope**

[16:49] was it you

[16:50] also you can get by with one kidney

“Hey, Cassie,” Kon says, and Cassie’s eyes stay on her paper as she uncaps a highlighter to draw neon yellow over a sentence. “Do you think men are… like. Hot?”

 _That_ makes Cassie look up. “Kon, we dated. It’s just deductive reasoning from there.”

Kon _hmms_ for eight entire seconds. “A strong point.” Okay. It’s just Cassie. _It’s just Cassie._ Here goes nothing. “I… agree?”

The delivery could have been more inspired, but Kon thinks it made sense. Probably. He’s open to workshopping for future reference.

“You… agree you’re good looking?”

Oops. “No? Well, I’ve been told I’m quite easy on the eyes—” Kon moves to hover in front of her, propping up his chin against the back of his hand. Cassie purses her lips. He coughs into his fist to stall for time. “ _Buuut_ I’m talking about—other guys.”

It’s quiet.

And then it clicks. “Ooooh,” Cassie says, “ _oh_.” And then it dominoes very, very quickly, because then her entire face goes megawatt and she carries on with, “Oh! That would explain why you’ve been moping in circles the entire day. That—so much is making sense right now.”

“What?”

“You’re trying to tell me you like Tim, right? Or heavily imply it.”

Holy shit. Is he that obvious?

Maybe he is, to Cassie, and to Young Justice. They can never hide from each other for long. They would never want to, either.

But Cassie is smiling. That’s not a bad reaction at all.

Kon recovers enough to say, “Oh, no. No. This isn’t about my feelings. I’ve never had feelings a single second of my life.”

Cassie’s mouth contorts like she’s trying not to wince after biting into an apple sour.

“I also don’t mope.” He categorically does. “And I’m actually incapable of love?” Kon goes on, starting to rotate about his own axis. “It’s a clone thing. I’ve got a silk and sawdust heart, like the Tin Man. I’ll never be a real boy with access to such a beautiful aspect of the human experience. I resent Cadmus deeply for imposing this defect on me and my life goal is world domination so others can suffer as I have.”

She laughs in earnest, now, wheezing into her hand. “That’s so sad I might cry,” she says, fanning her face, “and it’s a yes to the Tim question? Just checking.”

“He’s kind of the best.” Kon sighs; nods. “Listen—this is okay, right? This doesn’t make things weird? Since we used to—you know.”

“Used to _you know_ ,” Cassie echoes, amused. Tilts her head, gesturing Kon to come closer.

Her arms wrap around his neck, and Kon presses his face onto Cassie’s shoulder. Gold hair tickles his forehead.

Yes. They’re alright.


	4. wake turbulence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooook here we go this chapter was supposed to be. like. cute and sweet and then i spilled Tim Drake Angst all over it 
> 
> **CW for: allusions to suicidal behaviour/thoughts and references to past abuse**

Gotham, kingdom of double murders, is a dreary, eclectic place; the streets smell of the split motor oil. Blood, vomit and broiled rodent. Underground is the city sewer system, built adjacent to the natural tunnels the Bats use as easy passage within the city and back to the Bristol township. It is miles of artificial river flanked by uneasy silences and slimy, corroded brick, ferrying water too dirty to sustain anything but the hardiest microorganisms.

Upstairs, the streets are loud.

They scream, desperate and shrill and devastated, torn out of the throats of citizens caught in the fumes.

“— _uperboy_! Superboy!”

Red Robin’s shouts are muffled over his gas mask, the sounds having to pass through layers of filtering.

Kon holds himself inhumanly still before he lifts his feet of the ground and rams blindly into a nearby wall. The impact crushes the concrete into smithereens; fragments rain to the ground as he continues an erratic path, the wind behind him driving up a smokescreen of dust. He ricochets right towards the epicenter—

Where he settles a steady hand on Scarecrow’s rawboned back, over the starchy rags he uses for clothes. Crane goes stiff with surprise.

Kon’s palm slides to the main compartment of the gas canister, TTK promptly sealing the nozzle. He crushes the release mechanism and each valve for good measure.

Jonathan Crane’s face is bilious and sallow under his slipshod mask, fixed over his head with a noose-like knot. Brown irises and yellow sclerae stare up at Kon as he murmurs, “Sike. I had you for a minute there, hm, doc?”

Tim is by his side the next instant, boots scraping against bitumen.

Kon twists his head to nod in greeting. “Hey, Red,” he says, holding Crane up by the collar, “One Scarecrow for you. Hand-delivered.”

Red Robin is silent; the line of his body is unnaturally rigid as he stares at Scarecrow. Kon can hear Tim’s heart, the loud, fast _thumpthumpthumps_ against his ribs.

A stone forms in Kon’s stomach; does Tim’s mask have a leak?

“Red? Are you alright?”

Tim’s shoulders hunch up. He collapses his bo to attach it back to its holster.

Then he walks off.

Crane must’ve been part of the wider Arkham breakout the Bats had been dealing with earlier this month, but failed to ping anyone’s radars until now. Kon concentrates extra hard on maintaining the TTK field around himself—which is how he avoided ingesting the fear toxin in the first place—to avoid any residue as he ties Scarecrow up.

Red Robin isn’t far; with the immediate threat taken care of, he’s already prepping antidote injections for passerby that were caught in Crane’s mess, passing dosage cartridges to the newly arrived EMS team. The workers are also all clad in rebreathers; being employed in Gotham is in itself an occupational hazard.

Kon goes on to soothe people still caught under the influence, their faces inflamed and wet with tears. Hoisting them up into bridal carries, he lays them onto cots, keeping them pinned and frozen as medics clean patches of skin with alcohol. Victims that might attack others or self-mutilate get first priority. Superboy murmurs sweet nothings as adults wail like children, hiccupping apologies and names Kon doesn’t recognize until they grow more lucid.

They cry for their parents. People they love. Loved?

A son—a grown man, who received an especially heavy dose—is crying for his father.

 _Oh_ , Kon thinks, glancing over to where Tim is speaking with some public official, but well within earshot. _Oh, no_.

The whole process takes a good half-hour, but soon the crowd along the ticker-tape boundary gets bored, and Kon follows Red Robin as he wordlessly mounts his motorbike.

The engine purrs as it rouses, and the bike’s yellow headlights cast a forward path. They speed off, twisting through miles of road bounded by skyscrapers and the glow of streetlamps.

_____

“—the next time you decide to swoop into Gotham in the middle of a goddamn gas attack, maybe consult your brain cells and turn the other way. Turn. Around. This is Gotham—”

Red Robin still has his domino on, while his gas mask has been removed and stowed into his bike’s compartment box, so Kon can see Tim gritting his teeth, borderline snarling.

“I had it handled. I’m trained to deal with people like Scarecrow, and while I know this city’s rogues and we have decades of data to refer back to— _little_ of it is on its effects on metahumans—”

Over the years, Tim had largely outgrown the more volatile aspects of his temper; both of them have. It’s partly owed to training and experience. Partly owed to apathy.

Kon tries to get a word in for the fifth time in the past minute, “Tim—”

“ _Shut up_. Listen to me. What the fuck were you—you know what fear toxin does to people. You saw. Their worst nightmares, their worst traumas—I’ve been inoculated with that shit in a controlled environment so I can fight through it in the field—” Tim is pacing in circles, voice growing louder and higher. It’s their luck they’ve managed to reach the vehicle egress of Tim’s Nest before he started ranting. His back is facing where Kon is standing, shuffling awkwardly in place, and Tim’s shouts echo through his headquarters. “We don’t know how it would affect you. None of our antidotes account for metahuman physiologies, much less one that isn’t even entirely human.”

And _oh shit_ , Kon pretended to inhale the gas to gain the upper hand. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Kon takes a step forward. “Tim,” he tries again.

Tim backs up. “Shut up,” he growls. Throwing his hands up, tone incredulous, he adds, “Do. You realize. How risky that was? What the hell? Are you _nuts_?”

Kon bristles. Okay, so his strategy was might’ve been a gamble, but _his_ intervention cut the fight short, didn’t it? They’ve handled situations more dire than this. “Oh, that is _rich_ coming from you.”

“It’s _fear toxin_.” Tim’s next words are a thunderclap; “And you know better than anybody I wasn’t trying to survive back then!”

The white lenses of Tim’s domino go wide, and his mouth hangs open. 

Kon attempts to reach out once more; this time Tim stays planted where he is, frozen. Two steady hands settle on either of Tim’s arms, over crimson and black Kevlar.

Tim is shaking. It’s subtle, but with his hands wrapped around Tim’s triceps, Kon can detect the faintest tremor. He can see, up this close, the way Tim’s lower lip wobbles.

“I—” Tim says eventually, head down, arms folded against his chest. “I’m sorry. You were just trying to help.”

After a deep breath, Kon says, “I could have let you know I was there first.” Oh, he’s stupid. “It would’ve been bad if a Kryptonian got a lungful of fear toxin, huh?”

Kon had seen Tim take a kick to the shin, crumple before he could regather his bearings and—hadn’t been able to think much further. He had to act, not wait.

“No, I trust you. You have a better handle over your TTK than that; you would’ve kept yourself safe,” Tim says, a one-eighty from his attitude earlier. Quietly, “This is what we _do_ ; put ourselves in harm’s way. But I… didn’t want you to live through the worst parts of your life again.” 

“I just got freaked out,” Tim adds, “but I shouldn’t have yelled. For a second I thought my gas mask wasn’t working, and Crane got me, and—I thought I dreamt you up.”

Shit. “Holy crap,” is all Kon can manage; he feels awful, now. “Tim. I’m so sorry.”

A shake of the head. “Not your fault.”

Kon is still holding onto him by the arms. Tim is wound up, clutching at himself, but he gradually lets his forehead rest against the bend of Kon’s neck.

That’s how they stay until both their heartbeats slow. 

_____

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” is Tim’s low response. He’s been speaking exclusively in whispers after they let each other go. “Are you?”

The elevator ride from the lower platform of the Red Robin’s headquarters—past the training level lined with barbells and exercise equipment on one floor, then a crime lab, then a hulking set of monitors—and up into the Nest’s residential area is excruciating.

The apartment is huge. As the hidden scaffolding leading below-ground closes, a large aquarium sliding in its place, Kon takes in the multi-storey suite. A staircase that likely leads to a bedroom. A piano placed a few feet away from a sleek, beige couch. Hanging from the high ceiling is a contemporary-style chandelier.

This space obviously isn’t being actively used; it’s pristine, and hurricane Drake-Wayne leaves nothing undisturbed. The walls are decorated with generic paintings and shelves lined with dusty pottery.

The sole touches of personalization, really, are the PS4 hooked up to the TV system, plus a set of leg braces and crutches discarded by the coffee table, which Tim uses to maintain his public ruse of recovering from spinal damage.

 _Are you nuts_ , Tim had said. Geez. Tim is a pot calling a china teacup black.

“… well,” Tim says, sounding uncertain as he gestures to their surroundings, “here’s where I live.”

“This place is huge,” Kon comments. An entire family could live in here with room leftover. “And it looks like it was modelled off _Architectural Digest_.”

“It’s kind of stylish, right?”

“I don’t know. The vibe is closer to ‘rich asshole without any personal taste who uses their money to fill the void in their lives.’”

Tim tilts his head, and—laughs, almost real. “Right for the jugular. But yeah, I didn’t pick any of the furniture,” he admits, clearing his throat into a balled-up fist. “So. What can I help you with?”

There’s no hint of accusation or annoyance, but Kon fidgets. “I just wanted to visit. Drop in and say hi?”

Kon used to do this semi-frequently: he’d fly into Gotham with no regard for Batman’s no metas rule to interrupt Robin while he patrolled. Then he’d talk Tim’s ear off about pretty girls, regardless of whether Tim decided to listen that day or not.

The irony of the current situation is not lost on him.

The line of Tim’s mouth flattens. “… that’s it?”

“Yes? You haven’t been to the Tower since last month,” Kon says.

“I’ve been busy,” Tim says.

“Yeah, I know,” Kon replies, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “With your surgery, and all your work with Lucius and Tam, I get it. But I can miss my best friend, can’t I?”

Tim seems to snap out of some sort of reverie, and he stands straighter, brushing a strand of hair out his face. “No, you’re fine. It’s—good to see you, Kon.”

_____

It’s not an exceptionally happy night. Witnessing the effects of fear toxin will put a damper on anyone’s mood, provided they’re capable of basic compassion. Tim in particular is more subdued than usual—he’s in a veritable mood, betraying forced cheer as he flips through a few takeout menus to get them some delivery.

Kon wants to make it better, but he’s not sure how.

They end up ordering in from some 24/7 diner; Tim puts the leg braces back on to answer the door and tip the delivery guy, carrying a few containers back to the living room. Kon shifts where he’s seated on the barely broken-in sofa cushions, paying the barest attention to whatever mediocre Netflix original is queued up on screen, washing the dimmed room in blue.

Crane’s blends are world class, taking great pains to engage all the senses. Taste. Smell. Touch. Auditory and visual hallucinations. Worst fears, worst traumas, selected from an extensive catalogue. What would Kon hallucinate—some fucked up union between what he dreads most, trussed along sloppily cut and pasted memories?

What does Tim see; what is he afraid of?

Kon looks over to Tim, seated half a cushion away. He’s is poking at a piece of butter lettuce without any intent of picking it up.

If Kon can’t wrangle a genuine smile out of Tim in the next… say, twenty minutes (for ambitiousness’ sake), then he’s going to eat Tim’s TV.

“Tim?”

“Hm?” That poor piece of lettuce.

“Wanna tell me what you’re thinking?” he asks. “I’m not bad at figuring you out, but we could streamline the process, I think.”

That earns Kon a few slow, pensive blinks.

“Also, stop mutilating your food. It goes in your mouth.” 

Tim’s lips twitch.

Setting aside his partly-finished midnight snack, Tim glances around his apartment—to all the negative space, the polished, stagnant quiet. “Do you actually like who I am, now?”

“What? Of course I do.”

Tim’s brows furrow. Watches Kon like he’s an unfathomable thing. “There are futures,” he barrels on, “where I go about everything wrong—where the best version of myself is a dead one—”

Every time Tim speaks like this is ice down Kon’s back. He holds up a hand. “Stopping you right there. Don’t say that.”

“But I—”

Sharp and frustrated, “ _Tim_.”

Tim wrings his hands but obeys, starting over. “I keep wondering about—what I would do if something happened to you again. What I would turn into if I lost _one_ more person I cared about _one_ more time—is that going to be the tipping point for me to turn into those Tim Drakes?”

Wow. _Wooow_. Well, Kon asked. 

“If you got hurt again,” Tim says, voice brittle, “I don’t think I’d make you proud.”

Tim, beating villains with single-minded devotion, until his gloves became wet, each bone-crunching punch punctuated by the squelch of body fluid. Aggression for the sake of aggression, revenge over justice. Kon has seen it happen—hell even knows about the one-and-a-half year blank period that he and Cassie both hate talking about. 

_It’s easy, isn’t it?_ Tim had told him, back at the Tower. To hurt people. 

Kon lifts a hand—slowly, deliberately, so Tim has time to stop it—and brushes Tim’s hair back. It’s soft, pleasant to touch. Tim’s breathing stutters, but even as he screws his eyes shut, no tears fall. “Hey,” he says, “you like telling me how good a person I am—but you are too. You know that, right?”

“Am I really?” Tim objects. “Or am I just grasping at straws for proof? After I returned to Gotham and got Bruce back—I almost killed someone.”

“Almost,” Kon insists, as graciously as he can manage.

Tim tells him—about an encounter with Captain Boomerang not too long ago, how Red Robin had lured him into a trap, how it would have been so easy to let someone else finish him off to absolve himself from blame. How close Harkness had been to dying by the same weapon that left Jack Drake bleeding to death on the parlor floor.

About how, if Ra’s wanted Tim as part of the League’s legacy, the Demon’s Head must have pinpointed some sort of moral fragility worth exploiting.

But Kon knows cruelty for the sake of being cruel, and that’s not Tim, not even now. Especially not now. Tim is privy to a thousand ways to end a life, and a thousand-plus-one ways to save one. He’s consistently made the more difficult choice.

“And you know what else is stupid? I miss my dad,” Tim warbles, sounding exhausted. As if he needed to clarify, he adds, “Jack.”

“How is that stupid?”

“Isn’t it?” Tim challenges as he slumps into the cushions, but there’s no heat. “Like—what even is there to _miss_? Just lost potential. He barely even knew who I was, even near the end. Before my mom died he’d only talk to me about his work, if at all. He smashed my things. Would get up in my face and scream. A quarter of our conversations were arguments. But I still almost killed for him.”

At some point, that half-cushion distance had closed; their bodies are facing each other, Tim’s thighs held against his chest as Kon sits cross-legged. The slightest shift has their legs brushing. Minor, thoughtless touches. Tim doesn’t appear to mind. 

“I loved him. I still want him to be proud of me,” Tim says. “I don’t think he would be. Of—what I am.”

“A vigilante?”

Tim gulps and—in a trick of the light, his eyes flit downwards. His stomach flutters; Kon _really_ needs to get his crush under control, because his best friend is opening up over his _dead dad_ and Kon is over here, making up shit he wants to see.

“Among other things,” Tim croaks. “Sometimes—nights like these, it hits me that I’m nothing he wanted me to be. He wanted me to go to college, not drop out of high school. He wanted me to be _normal_ —” He sucks in a harsh breath, “—and the fact that I’m—”

Tim’s jaw clicks shut. Terror—one that runs deep and long—passes over his face, pervading into the curve of his frown, a new tightness in his shoulders.

“That you’re…” Kon prompts.

Tim shrugs, averting his eyes. “Lost my train of thought.”

“Okay,” Kon says. Gently, but leaving no doubt that he doesn’t buy it. “Tim. I like you. A lot. You’re one of the best people I know.”

Tim’s fingers drum against his kneecaps. “You’re biased.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true.” And Tim scoffs. Conversely, he looks like he’s hanging onto Kon’s every word. “What, dumbass, you want it in writing?” _C’mon, Wonder Boy, smile—_ “Do we need to get a notary to certify that I’ve soundness of mind?”

Bingo. Wow, it’s wide enough that Kon can see Tim’s gums. His real smile has always been toothy, crooked. Kon feels stupidly proud for being responsible.

“Funny.”

“Stating the obvious,” Kon sniffs. “And if your dad _was_ here and isn’t proud of you, he’d just be stupid beyond redemption—no offense. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

Sometimes Kon can’t quite comprehend what Tim sees in him. He’d never considered there might be a similar problem the other way around. One conversation won’t undo the damage inflicted by years of tragedy—just as Kon knows that when he finally undoes all the tangles and knots holding him hostage, the ropes will come away permanently gnarled.

But it’s all either of them can offer; a listening ear and a kind heart.

“… thanks, Conner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the specific source material i drew on for this chapter is robin #167 (1993) and RR #26! they're great (re)reads if you want to get emo about tim :) sad little man 
> 
> also i want to make it known that i am extremely on board with the headcanon where the reason why tim barely had any emotional reaction to seeing his dead best friend when kon went to find tim in paris was because  
> a) he was emotionally numb _but also_  
>  b) because he thought he was losing his mind and just imagining that kon was there (hence the line "will i see conner? hope so" while actively dying in RR #5 even though kon had been revived at that point)
> 
> so when tim thought he was hallucinating superboy because of scarecrow's fear toxin................... :]
> 
> im rambling
> 
> anyway thank u for reading kis kis see y'all later


	5. all i got is who i am

Cassie is a demigoddess and Bart is a speedster from the future. Tim is… Tim.

And Kon can make volcanoes erupt. He spent part of his life living in Cadmus, surrounded by telepaths and slimy beasts that were created through dubiously ethical means. Like him, minus the slimy part.

It’s no wonder why Smallville felt like such a breath of fresh air—the arid grasslands held a pleasant sort of emptiness, a promise of normalcy. A sanctuary to exist with minimal witnesses. Peace.

Kon spends this particular springtime afternoon by the lake, his hair, blades of grass and budding wildflowers swaying along with the countryside’s southbound winds. The water ripples and glitters under the sun.

Save needing to secure the barn for the night in a few hours, Kon has nothing urgent to attend to—other than the language arts module he refuses to indulge until the approaching deadline brings his stress levels past a critical threshold.

Pointing at a veil-like cloud travelling across the sky, Kon ponders aloud, “What does that one look like to you?” In his opinion, it’s turtle shaped. And when he’s inevitably met with no response, he goes on to stage whisper, “Hey, bud.”

Krypto’s ears twitch.

“Want me to let you in on a secret?”

Krypto shifts against Kon’s lap, snout wiggling as he huffs.

Earlier, they’d spent some time making laps through the sky—flying over Keystone, Smoky Hills’ turbines and winding roads before landing back in the outskirts of Smallville. By the lake borders, Kon plucked two-dozen cattails and chucked them, one by one into the air. Krypto would bite into them and the everything would explode into mounds of white fluff, scattering into the air. Some of it is definitely still stuck in his fur.

“I tried to tell Ma during breakfast this morning, but I just ended up staring at her for, like, ten solid minutes. I feel a bit ridiculous being so tongue-tied about it. She’s subscribed to the Daily Planet, y’know? She’ll read practically anything Lois and Clark write, even if it’s a puff piece Clark got saddled into writing.”

He’s rambling. Kon reaches down to scratch behind Krypto’s ears, smiling to himself as his head gradually lolls to the side, tongue hanging out. A persistent stream of coos compounded with neck rubs has the dog’s tail is thumping against the ground.

“There’s no way she hasn’t seen all the stuff they do for Pride every year. But for whatever reason it wouldn’t come out,” Kon informs him, and then laughs at the phrasing. “Whoops, pun not intended. Anyway—I’m bisexual.”

Didn’t even make it sound like a question this time. _And_ he used the actual word. He’s so good at this.

Krypto tilts his head leftward, white ears flopping to the side before he extends his two front paws in a big stretch. Then he hops up and headbutts Kon dead in the face, tail still wagging behind him.

Giggling through Krypto’s affectionate mauling, cold nose smushed against his neck, Kon murmurs, “I love you too, buddy.” There’s a traitorous prickling behind his eyes, a building ache at the back of his throat. “Good dog.”

____

Kon goes back to Gotham two days after Scarecrow’s last appearance—this time by invitation. Tim says they should check him over, in case any of the toxin _did_ enter Kon’s bloodstream—just too insignificant of an amount to really pose a problem.

“There shouldn’t be anything to worry about, though. It’s just nice to have extra data. If the bloodwork does show anything, it’ll tell us if the toxin’s half-life is any different for you,” Tim babbles as he continues to jot notes into a holo-widget, migrating from place to place around the lab. Kon just throws in a well-timed _Uh-huh_ every now and then to keep Tim going—his chattier tendencies are rarer, now, so Kon feels compelled to egg him on. “Even for regular people chronic neurological effects only manifest after years of low-level exposure, if at all—for Crane’s usual strains, anyway. Alfred got back to me and he says there’s nothing _that_ different this time around—which is reasonable, since Scarecrow escaped pretty recently and hasn’t had much time to alter his methodology…”

Kon is tall enough that the soles of his feet scuff against the ground as he’s seating on the examination table, legs swinging back and forth.

Tim passes the biohazard waste disposal over; Kon drops the cotton ball he’d been pressing against his skin to stave off any residual bleeding from getting his finger pricked. He idles some more as Tim stalks off for a few moments to put the bright red bucket away, returning with something else in hand.

“For good patients,” says Tim.

“Ha-ha.” Kon scowls, crossing his arms. “You’re hilarious.”

Tim twirls the offending object like he’s spinning a pen. “It’s blue raspberry.”

Kon loves blue raspberry. Fuck. He grabs the lollipop, muttering, “You stink,” which only makes Tim grin. There’s a pair of triangles—bat ears—drawn on the wrapper in black sharpie, and narrow semicircles for eyes. “What would you call this? A Bat-pop? Bat-lolly? Oh, I got a better one—Batsucker.”

“No?” Tim says, nose crinkling. “None of those.”

“Batsucker it is,” Kon declares primly, getting off the exam table. He tugs off the wrapper, sticks the candy in his mouth—and immediately makes exaggerated slurping noises.

“No, _nope_. Veto.” Tim throws his hands up and starts walking away. “Heavy veto. And stop—stop making those noises—” Face in hands to hide an obvious flush, ratted out by reddening ears. “My life is a conga line of regrets.”

____

Coming out to Tim shouldn’t be so hard.

The extra difficulty likely stems from the fact that Tim is the entire reason why Kon made the leap to confront his own sexuality in the first place. There’s no mistaking the swooping of his gut, the tunnel vision, the constant weight of temptation—Tim is beautiful, a dweeb, and he works harder than God. Kon just wants Tim to be happy. Wants to be part of why he is.

Tim is his best friend.

Tim is his best friend; Kon _wants_ Tim to know. With an active secret to keep, it becomes glaringly, almost insultingly obvious that Kon pretty much lets Tim in on practically everything about his life—and Tim often returns the favor. They’re each other’s secret keepers. Tim kept his lips zipped about Kon’s genetic heritage right up until the fallout, and Kon knew about what happened to Jack Drake ahead of the entire team. He was the first person Kon had gone to after Lex had escaped with Brainiac.

A small, scared part of him keeps asking: what if he comes out and Tim starts acting uncomfortable? That would hurt _bad_ —

Illogical. Tim wouldn’t.

Red Robin is scheduled for patrol that evening, but it’s a slow night. Tim, with Kon disappearing intermittently when he hears some emergency elsewhere, completes two full circuits around his assigned area, thwarting a few routine robberies and instances of aggravated assault—and then cools down by swinging, in a seemingly aimless trajectory, to the Northeast end of the city.

Gotham’s skies are uncharacteristically clear tonight, the usually enduring layers of smog dilute enough to bare a handful of stars. The city’s skyglow is still too great to offer much more.

They land on a lower building among a cluster of high-rises, constructed with brick and stone. The rooftop is a plain gray, decorated with pebbles and rotting leaves. It boasts a pair of aged water towers as its centerpiece, reinforced by a steel frame. Streaks of rust run down its walls.

Tim slides down the incline of the roof, perching himself on one of protruding sculptures—a bird’s head, partway eroded by acid rain. Judging by the hooked beaks, they’re modelled off raptors.

Kon obliges and takes a seat to Tim’s left.

Tim uses his civilian register as he says, “I wanna show you something cool.” Adjusting the position of his boots for a better grip, he points towards the building across the street, to one of the arched windows. “Over there.”

Taking advantage of his enhanced vision, Kon squints, and through the windowpanes, sees—

A crib. It’s unoccupied, but Kon can make out the sea creatures dangling off the baby mobile, the rumpled pile of blankets bunched up against the railing.

“This couple moved in during my, er… tour of Europe,” Tim elaborates. “It makes sense—they seemed pretty young, and property prices always drop when someone dies on the premises. Makes the entire building more affordable.”

Practical, but morbid. Perfectly on-brand for Gothamites. Kon hums, “Huh—good for them?” And then _(wait, holy fuck)_ —lets out an awed breath when he realizes. “This is your old apartment.”

“Nice, you remember,” Tim says. He’s smiling. “Neat, huh? The last time I came by here was to brood—hey, don’t laugh at me, _geez_ —” but Tim is laughing too, bright and genuine, “and the parents were tucking their baby in for the night. They looked happy. In love with each other. In love with their child—so I—I hope my old home becomes a happy place.”

Below, traffic continues to flow, cars stopping and starting at intersections. The world keeps spinning. Kon places a hand on Tim’s shoulder.

Without looking away from the window, Tim places a gloved hand over Kon’s—squeezes his fingers—and Kon almost pukes his heart out. His voice drops to a whisper as he says, “I hope that kid grows up loved. I’ll make this city safe for them.”

This is why they keep doing this day after day, Kon thinks. What makes this worth it, night after night—to give other people the chances they’d been robbed of. Eyes on the future.

Neither of them speaks for a while, letting the muted roars of engines a hundred-foot drop away fill the air between them.

Kon has nary a clue how long they stay, just taking in the sounds of the city and the bright lights, but eventually they decide they’ve dawdled for too long and get up to leave.

“Have you shown anyone else?”

“No,” Tim says, unlatching his grapnel from his utility belt, “just you.”

Kon feels inexplicably special. “Well, thanks for picking me.” The only other time he’d been here was when he snuck through Tim’s window—the very same window leading to the now-nursery—upset that Tim had hung up the cape without so much as a goodbye. Jack Drake had still been alive and kicking.

“Of course.”

“I almost didn’t recognize it,” Kon says, floating midair.

Tim snorts. “Well, yeah, I doubt you were paying attention to the architecture since you were so occupied with messing with all my stuff—”

“Freaking Enya, Rob,” Kon parries, promptly breaking into shitty song, “Ahem. _Whoo_ can _saay_ where the road goes, where the day flows— _only time_ —”

Tim aims; shoots. Swinging towards a nearby skyscraper, he shouts, “For the last time, the CD was a gift!”

“From _who_?”

No response. Tim lands on a neon sign and re-fires to make a turn. 

“Your silence? Deafening,” Kon calls. Cape rippling through the wind, Red Robin twists around mid-air to flip Kon the bird.

He’s so content; joy bubbles up his sternum, bursting out as halted, frenetic chortles. _Best friend I’ve ever had. Want to keep him,_ Kon’s mind chants _. Hold him, hold him, dive in; kiss him._

_Tell him, tell him. Just tell him._

____

Kon flies home. He told Ma he’d be back for the night.

His hand tingles at the spots Tim had touched. It’s probably psychosomatic.

The older he gets, the faster Kon becomes—he traverses the one thousand, four-hundred-mile distance in a little over ten minutes, decelerating a few hundred yards away from the Kent farm to avoid making too much noise.

He takes the beaten path back up home, listening to the chitter of bugs hidden in the fields and the crunch of dirt under his soles. It’s not terribly late yet—it’s a quarter past midnight in New Jersey, an hour ahead of Kansas. Hardly peak hours for criminal activity.

The lights are still on when Kon slips inside via the front entrance, the heft of his footsteps drawing out creaks and whines from the floorboards.

“Hi,” Kon says as he pokes his head into the living room. Ma is nursing a cup of tea in one hand, some hardcover novel resting on her lap. “I didn’t think you’d still be up.”

The way back upstairs to their rooms is past the couch and fireplace, but Kon’s socked feet remain planted by the entryway—something, _something_ , warm and turbulent in his chest.

“I was having some trouble sleeping,” Ma says, adjusting her glasses back of the bridge of her nose, glancing over. “I hoped some reading would tire me out. Why don’t you come in, dear, no need to linger—”

“Um,” Kon interrupts. “Uh.”

“Is everything alright, Conner?” she asks, concern seeping into her tone. Setting her drink aside, she adds, “You've looked stressed these past few days.”

 _Just say it. Spit it out._ Half of his body is hidden by the wall as he grips the door jamb, partway bathed in the dark. He hopes he doesn’t break the frame by accident. Wouldn’t be the first time. Wide-eyed, Kon blurts, “I’m bi. Bisexual.”

Ma pauses. “Oh,” she says.

What does that mean—is it surprise? Disappointment? Confusion—shit, is he going to have to explain—“It means—”

“I know what it means, dear,” Ma says, folding her book closed to set it aside and stand.

Kon crosses the boundary between the hallway and the living room completely.

He’s always been so much—the more difficult child, so stubborn, worse at everything. Loud and impulsive and mean and—

Ma wraps her two wrinkled hands around one of his wrists, gently guiding him to the kitchen. “Sit,” she says.

Kon watches, oddly detached, as Ma opens one of the cupboards to find another mug.

Ma slides a cup of chamomile across the wooden dining table, along with a Kleenex. Kon stares at the limp, wrinkled tissue paper for a few moments before it registers that his vision is blurry. Through the deep burn permeating through his airway, he asks, “It’s okay? You’re not upset?”

Ma looks borderline offended.

With Kon hunched over on a chair, all Ma has to do is tilt her head down to place a gentle kiss along Kon’s hairline. Her fingers start carding through his hair—it’s getting longer, closer to the length he’d kept it back when he was sixteen and wore the S-symbol on a hand-embroidered jacket. Kon bites down on his lower lip _hard_ to keep it from trembling.

“Young man,” she says, voice stern and brooking no argument, “if you think anything—anything would make me love you less, _especially_ for something so inconsequential, then I’ve failed—”

“No,” Kon protests, “no, you haven’t, you’re perfect. I was just—nervous.” Insecure, always afraid of rejection.

“Then don’t doubt that I love you. You’ve been my boy the moment I met you.”

Kon sniffs into her cardigan. Clogged up, he mumbles, “Literally right away?”

“The very instant,” Ma confirms, “and I only love you more every day.”

 _Okay. Okay_. “I love you too.”

It’s almost comical, how both he and Clark dwarf her—what with their broad shoulders and alien physiologies. Ma is so frail by comparison, but Kon has never felt safer.

Ma keeps a soothing hand running through Kon’s hair until he calms down a couple more notches. After an inconveniently long time, his breaths finally even out.

“You might have a point, though,” Ma eventually says. 

“Huh?”

She tugs at a few strands of hair. “It _is_ getting thinner. Maybe those Luthor genes are kicking in, like you suspected.”

Kon backs up and gapes, gripping at his own head. “No. You’re kidding. No. You’re messing with me.”

Ma just smiles.

“ _Ma_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this house we love and respect martha kent
> 
> not my best work but writing this made me very soft
> 
> being comfortable with who you are can be a complicated road! and it's okay to be a little lost or stuck on the way—just remember to be kind to yourself. have a nice day :)


	6. don't look down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have been. so busy and exhausted aaaa but i finally have something that qualifies as a fic update. hell yeah!
> 
> **CW for violence and needle use to treat injuries**

Kon is, for lack of better word, _peppy_ for the rest of the week.

Krypto takes full advantage, enjoying the record success rates he’s having at enticing Kon into games of chase or fetch. Ma just seems pleased Conner is in a good mood.

Four days after he comes out, Kon finds himself listening to the birdsong outside during breakfast with half-lidded eyes. Doves.

The hot ceramic of his mug is against his bottom lip when Ma asks about Tim.

Kon’s coffee goes down the wrong pipe.

“Consider your timing, dear,” Ma says, deceptively nonchalant, “you decided to tell me you’re bisexual—” and Kon’s heart fills, _fills_ as he hears her actually use the word—“the night you told me you would be visiting Gotham for a few hours, which happens to be home to a boy who used to call our landline just to talk to you.”

“Friends talk over the phone,” Kon says, still coughing. He inhales. “I think I got creamer up my nose.”

“No you didn’t, sweetheart.” Ma hands him a napkin anyway. “And I’m old, Conner, not senile. You’re not very subtle.”

“No, no, obviously not.” Kon rams a fist against his chest.

“Tell me about him. I know you want to.”

And he does.

_____

The Titans’ schedule is typically quite loose; most of its members don’t have the time to commit to perfect consistency. The greatest chance of having all the members together in the same room at once are during actual missions or early in the morning, after mandatory group training. Otherwise, everyone scatters to different parts of the building and does their own thing.

Kon is halfway recalling a story about Krypto and a C-list villain to Cassie and Tim when Tim’s phone rings. The caller must be important, because Tim quickly excuses himself and leaves the lounge in search of someplace quieter.

Once Tim is out of earshot, Cassie whispers conspiratorially, “There’s definitely something there.”

“What?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Cassie says. “He was literally slumped against the couch cushions, making these big calf eyes at you.” For emphasis, she makes circles around her own eyes with her hands. “You _can’t_ tell me you didn’t see that.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kon insists. “He’s hardly acting any different towards me.”

Grimacing at him like he’s stupid, she grumbles, “That is _not_ the rock-solid defense you think it is.” She takes a deep breath. “Let’s break the situation down. He invites you to Gotham, and only you.”

“We’re best friends, and he’s been trying harder to keep up an actual social life lately. And the last time was after Crane’s gas attack—he wanted to make sure I was okay.” Kon doesn’t mention the former Drake residence.

Cassie nods in concession, but she keeps going. “He made you hot chocolate to cheer you up.”

Kon regrets his thoughtless gushing. He should really figure out how to keep his mouth shut. “I was having a bad night!”

“How about your last encounter with Luthor? You called Tim for help in the middle of the night and medevac from _Gotham_ arrived for Lena within—without exaggeration—the next couple of hours.” She holds up a hand when Kon opens his mouth to protest. “I know Tim is a great guy, and that he’s naturally hellbent on being useful. But you’re definitely a priority for him. Making your life better is a priority to him.”

Kon purses his lips. It’s not that he’s so horridly oblivious that he thinks Cassie is wrong—but he idea that Tim might reciprocate sounds too good to be true. There’s a paranoid voice at the back of his mind, insisting against Kon setting himself up for failure.

“He’s only ever been with girls.”

“ _You’ve_ only ever been with girls.” And actively shoving his sexuality aside for years, but whatever. Minor detail.

“I’m just saying, there’s a pattern worth looking into,” Cassie grumbles. There’s no real irritation in it, though, because she could definitely tell that she’d gotten through to him, even by a small margin.

Because she’s _right_. Even at the peak of Tim’s obsessive search for Batman, Tim set it all aside for a few hours to help Kon out in Paris. He’d left his post in Bludhaven to pull Kon away from the brink of death, years ago, only for Kon to die not long afterwards.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_.” She pats Kon’s back, eyes suddenly sad. “Trust me. I have first-hand experience in the people we both became after. You know. Losing you.”

Shit. That got somber far too fast; Kon needs to divert. He huffs, crossing his arms, and mutters, “Well, still. Maybe you’re reading way too hard.”

Cassie’s brows rise to her hairline and she leans forward, posture challenging. “Maybe _you_ can’t _read_.”

Kon scoffs. “Sure I _can_ —watch this: A, B, C—” Cassie clamps a hand over his mouth and laughter bubbles out of Kon’s throat as he does his level best to keep going. “H, I,” he recites, “J—”

A blast of wind smacks both him and Cassie in the face.

“Hi,” Bart says, holding a plateful of food. It’s piled high; damn speedster metabolism. “Why is Kon singing the alphabet?”

“To prove he’s literate,” Cassie replies. “He’s not, by the way.”

Without hesitation, Bart accepts the answer, nodding shrewdly. But then he asks, “What letter did he get to?”

Kon gapes as Cassie supplies, “J.”

“Woah, that’s nearly halfway down!” Bart exclaims, tone seeping with artificial awe. “Good for you, dude.”

Cassie loses it. Kon buries his face into his hands. “I hate you both so much.”

Bart adds, “Literate in what, by the way?” and sticks half a pancake in his mouth.

Cassie snorts, but then she goes quiet, making the occasional glance in Conner’s direction. Belatedly, he realizes Cassie and Ma are technically the only people he’s out to. She’s waiting for Kon’s cue, and Kon is incredibly grateful to her.

In a single breath, he forces out, “She’s trying to convince me that Tim likes me back.”

Bart pauses his chewing, expression growing contemplative. “Huh,” he says, like this is the first time the idea has crossed his mind. Despite that, he nods a few moments later. “I can see where she’s coming from.”

“Hera.” Cassie _grins_ , completely self-satisfied. “I love being right.”

Kon says, “I’m just—afraid of being a presumptuous asshole.”

Bart moves onto his fruit slices. “You never had a problem with it when we were younger,” he comments. “Not that it’s bad to be worried.”

“That was because I was sixteen and _actually_ a presumptuous asshole,” Kon continues, “but now, we’re all adults—I am an _adult_ —”

“By a legal technicality,” Cassie butts in.

“By a legal technicality,” Kon parrots, “with a better sense of boundaries, and a good understanding of what constitutes a healthy relationship.” Kon blinks. “Holy fuck, I sound like a therapy session.”

“That’s probably because you go to therapy.”

“Interesting theory.”

Tim chooses this moment to walk back into the lounge. The line of Red Robin’s posture is polished, but at ease; whoever Tim had been talking to, it hadn’t been about bad news. 

Still, Kon asks, “Everything good?”

Tim nods, taking a seat next to Kon. “Yeah, just a few updates about a case back at home. Did I miss the rest of the Krypto story?”

“Nah,” Bart interjects. “Kon was reciting the alphabet to prove he’s literate. He got all the way to J, dude.”

Tim nods like that makes sense. He pats Kon’s arm. “Well, that’s okay,” he says. “He can take his time with the rest. We all learn at our own pace.”

Kon hates it here. “I’m being bullied,” he grouses. “This is bullying.”

Tim keeps patting him.

_____

The rest of the morning goes by peacefully; Tim retreats to perform his solo exercise routines and Cassie heads off to monitor room, leaving Kon and Bart with time to get some studying done. Poorly, but Kon will let it count.

This particular Saturday stretches on, languid; by evening, the Titans are under the impression that it’ll be an easy weekend, right up until a quarter of the city is reported to be trapped under blocks of ice.

Never a boring day, Kon supposes.

The fight is a _mess_ ; the bots are pesky, evasive, and have little to no refractory period between ice blasts. They just seem intent on freezing everything around them without rhyme or reason.

They split up; there’s too much ground to cover with the entire city as a target.

Kon gets locked into a pattern of melting ice off of buildings, really missing Starfire’s starbolts, and then trying to figure out what to do with the resulting deluge of water without sending waves down San Francisco’s inclined streets. Eventually, he settles on cleaving the ice the best he can with his TTK and flying the pieces to a location where it can melt more safely.

The rest of the team alternate between destroying as many robots as possible and civilian rescue. Every so often, Kon’s ears pick up on a crackle of thunder that must be Cassie hard at work.

By the fifth hour out, Kon is irritated and nursing an emerging headache.

Flying off to see if anyone else needs help, Kon soon spots a sluggishly moving speck of red and black on the ground. He swoops down, slowing enough on his descent so Tim has time to react before his feet hit pavement. 

Tim is standing, but clearly favoring the leg that hasn’t been haphazardly wrapped in bandages. It’s not actively bleeding, but the splotches of red, now rusting at the edges, had clearly made their best attempt at soaking through Tim’s first aid job.

“Superboy,” Tim greets. At the look on Kon’s face, continues, “It’s better than it looks. Really.”

“Red,” Kon says, “are you okay?”

“As it turns out,” Tim says, casual as ever, “if you get too close to the robot’s motion sensors they get, uh. Very aggressive. And they have some sort of signal feedback mechanism that activates the same attack response in every robot within a, er, three-hundred-ish feet radius?” He fishes out a bag of disassembled parts, and there are bloody glove prints on it. “But the _good_ news is that we have these lovely, intact module boards so the Lanterns can figure out wherever the hell these things are from.”

That doesn’t answer the question. “I literally hate you,” Kon says, stepping closer to lay a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Please. Are you okay?”

“Been worse,” is what Kon hears right as he extends his field down Tim’s body—and detects several short, interrupted cuts across Tim’s back. They both tense—Kon, when he discovers the wounds, and Tim when senses the use of TTK on his body. But he doesn’t move away.

Kon’s palm migrates upwards to cup Tim’s cheek, and Tim’s surprise is evident even with the domino obscuring half of his face. 

“We’re done here,” Kon grumbles, low and dark in his chest. “If the Lanterns are on their way, we can afford to head back to the tower.”

Tim is about to say something else when their communicators buzz—and it’s like some sort of spell fizzles out, their surroundings re-manifesting around them. First the noise, the cacophony of the city, the metallic stench permeating the air, and how soft, smooth and warm Tim’s skin is.

Tim takes a single step back. He fumbles around for his communicator, fingers shaking ever so subtly as he unclips the device from his hip.

“ _Oh, good_ ,” crackles Bart’s voice, and it sounds tight and sheepish. “ _Did you guys know the robots have an attack mode?”_

Shit.

The moment Kon pinpoints the location of Bart’s voice, he flies Tim and himself over to the financial district, zipping past the central waterfront and the South Beach Harbour.

“Stay where you are,” Tim instructs.

“ _Not exactly going anywhere_ ,” Bart parries.

He lets go of Tim’s waist the second they make touchdown, jogging over to where Bart is sprawled out against the ground, right leg encased in a block of ice. The bend of his knee doesn’t look right.

Kon blurts, “Bart, holy fuck.” He lets the pit of worry take root, blossom, and then he gets to work on extracting Bart’s leg as delicately as he can.

“Hey guys,” Bart says, visibly trying not to wince. “Thanks for being so quick.”

“Of course.” Tim’s voice is firm but gentle as he kneels—gritting his teeth on the way down as he strains the gashes running along his leg. His face smooths out before he says, “Kon’s going to check your knee, okay?”

“Flare-up, no big deal,” Bart says, strained but adamant even as Tim grabs his wrists to force them aside. “Nothing—nothing too bad.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, stupid,” Kon says, placing a hand onto the lower section of Bart’s thigh, careful to keep his touch as light as possible and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he looks over to Tim. “Well, uh, nothing’s broken, but a bit of ligament is definitely torn.”

Bart groans. “Always the right kneecap that bites me in the ass. It just gave up on me mid-sprint,” he mutters, shifting slightly. The action accidentally jostles Bart’s knee further and he bites back a shout.

Tim shakes his head. “Hey, hey, you’re gonna be fine, Bart,” he soothes, using his fingers to swipe beads of sweat off of Bart’s forehead. He cringes when some dried blood gets smeared all over instead. As he reaches to the back of his utility belt, presumably to retrieve some painkillers, he says, “Let’s get him back to the tower ASAP.”

Despite the intent to the let the Lanterns handle the bulk of cleanup and make a hasty retreat, it’s midnight by the time the team hobbles back to the tower, Bart being carried bridal style in Kon’s arms. Tim is on their right, turning down Raven’s offer to look after Tim’s injuries.

“It’s not serious,” he says. “Bart’s leg is in way worse shape.”

Cassie, meanwhile, is flanking the left side, engaging Bart in conversation to keep his mind occupied.

“I want a slurpee.” 

Cassie’s nose scrunches up. “You got frozen, and you want ice.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time, though. I want grape,” Bart supplements, because he’s a heathen. 

The main doorway to the tower is encased in melting ice. Not a problem; Kon melts the stuff with little effort.

Then, the entryway itself refuses to open when Cassie enters the access code, and after several tries more tries Kon passes Bart to Cassie so he can use his TTK to carefully pry the panels apart without damaging the inner machinery. When they step inside, they find that none of the lights are willing to turn on. The air inside is frigid; San Francisco weather is mild typically thanks to its proximity to the ocean, but it’s been an abnormally frosty night. Not surprising, given the circumstances.

“I think the generator’s down,” Tim says, and everyone starts swearing.

_____ 

It takes twenty minutes for Tim to get the standby power source booted up. Rose slinks off as soon as the doorway mechanisms work again. Bart is ushered away for a proper X-ray with Raven following closely behind, though he already looks to be in remarkably less pain. Accelerated healing is a blessing.

Kon follows Tim into another room in the medical wing; the bulk of the standby generator’s power is being funneled to this part of the tower, making it significantly warmer than the rest of the building.

With less people around, Tim lets his shoulders slump, the hard lines of his posture melting under the burn of exhaustion, like wax to flame. Kon has half a mind to be happy Tim feels safe enough around him to let his guard down the moment everyone else is gone, but that feeling dissipates into thin air when Tim discards his cape, letting its tattered remains flutter to the ground.

Kon hadn’t had the opportunity to actually observe at the cuts on Tim’s back and legs; the harsh white lights of the medbay lend an astonishing amount of detail. He winces as takes stock of the open cuts across Tim’s back, exposing angry red flesh. The surrounding fabric is stained.

“Does it hurt?”

Tim’s white lenses stare blankly ahead, mouth drooping into a frown. “Uh,” he says, hesitant, “yeah. It does.”

“You can’t reach injuries on your back; I’ll dress them, okay?”

No response.

“Trust me?” Kon says.

Tim softens. “Of course.”

Kon drums his fingers against his thighs as Tim leaves to change out of his suit and give his injuries a preliminary rinse under the shower. When he returns, domino removed and limping over in a pair of basketball shorts, Kon smiles and holds out a suture kit. 

He’s discovered he’s good at detail-oriented, hands-on stuff; his TTK is definitely a contributing factor. Complicated pie lattices and woodworking come easily to him.

And, apparently, stitches. 

“You’re really great,” Tim says, tightening a knot.

“I guess the first aid training you made everyone go through paid off.”

“No, I mean—” Tim huffs, tired and fond. “We’re lucky to have you. _I’m_ insanely lucky you’re my best friend.”

“I light up every room I’m in, that’s for sure.”

Kon’s oldest friends are used to his hyperbole. He may have had his head shoved far up his ass when he was younger, but even back then Kon thinks that he said all those things and pretended hard enough to believe in them, they’d be true.

But Tim hums. Says, “Yeah.”

Oh. A pleasant warmth washes down Kon’s chest, permeating though the cavities of his gut. He clears his throat. “Uh, I hope Bart’s okay.”

“Can you hear them from here?”

Kon pauses what he’s doing, needle hovering over skin as he focuses his super-hearing. “He’s chatting with Raven,” he says, “sounds fine.”

When Kon is in the middle of closing the fifth and final fresh cut on Tim’s back, the doorway slides open, unveiling Cassie with wild curls, a tired smile and a drink tray loaded with slushies. She spots Kon and Tim both hunched over with gloves and forceps and raises a brow.

“Suture train,” Kon explains, squinting as he completes another knot and brings the hooked needle further down to start the next loop. Tim is nearly done treating the deep cut along the side of his leg, too.

“Choo choo,” Tim deadpans.

“Stitch ‘n bitch club,” Cassie amends, and Tim laughs. She places two drinks by Kon’s hip: a Zesti cola for Tim and cherry for Kon.

The team would be utterly lost without 7/11; often, what everyone needs after a long day is enough sugar to give a seven-year-old a heart attack. The tray is conspicuously free of any bright purple, so Cassie must have gone to the next room to check on Bart before coming here.

Tim must have noticed the same thing, because he ties the last loop on his calf and asks, “How’s Bart doing?”

“He bounced pretty quick once we set it properly. Raven said she only needed to do half the healing. As long as he gets a full night’s sleep, I think he’ll good as new,” Cassie replies, climbing onto an unoccupied cot to rest her legs. “Okay. Tim, you go first.”

“Hm?”

“Bitch about something. Outside of today’s shit-fest, preferably.”

“Uh,” Tim says, and Kon presumes he has his pensive face on—the cute one where his lower lip juts out and his eyes narrow, almost like a grumpy pout. As delicately as he can, Kon feeds the thread—far-far loop, near-near loop—through the skin. There’s the faint noise of Tim uncapping a tube of ointment to fill the space with noise as he contemplates an answer. “Last week a bunch of goons threw my bike into the Gotham marina while I was busy fighting? I ended up stealing a trench coat from a guy I knocked out so I could take the subway home.”

Cassie takes a pronounced gulp from her own drink and Kon releases a loud bark of laughter.

“Is something funny?”

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” Kon says, completing his own set of stitches. He snips the thread; Tim automatically passes the ointment tube over his shoulder. There’s a brief, two-second delay where Kon has the forcibly wrench his eyes away from the way the muscles on Tim’s back bunch up from the motion now that he’s not distracted by work; all that rooftop swinging has conferred a surprising amount of bulk. It would have taken longer if it weren’t for Cassie’s judgemental staring.

Curses. Kon is positioned so that his legs are crossed behind the arch of Tim’s spine, knees almost touching the spot where bare skin ends and a tight waistband wraps around Tim’s trunk. 

_Think about something else, Conner_. Kon squeezes a thin line of ointment onto the cuts and hurriedly pastes the dressings on.

Cassie’s choice of complaint is her anthropology class; her professor is phenomenal, she insists, but the TA in charge of assignments is, unfortunately, about the opposite. She and Helena are also butting heads again over Cassie doing too much at once. Tim hums to indicate he’s listening as he slides off the bench—which is both a relief and a tragedy—to stash the med kit away, and his suggestion to take on more of the workload earns him a pinched earlobe.

Once it’s Kon’s turn in the _Stitch ‘n Bitch_ circle, he actually finds some difficulty remembering any recent anecdotes that are any bit more than mildly inconvenient; life has been okay, lately. Sure, today fucking _sucked_ , but everyone is present, accounted for, and safe. The bar might be a bit low, but Kon will take it.

He closer to Ma and the Titans than ever and he feels… salvageable. It’s a foreign feeling he hasn’t been privy too since he was new to the world. Even his usual nightmares have made themselves scarce.

And it should be a relief, but Kon can’t wholly shake of the sense of impending danger for long—he’s not sure any of them can. The farm and Tim and the team are the reprieves that push Kon into believing in good tomorrows, in tomorrows _period_ , but the worry clings. Grimy and tacky. Like dirt.

Maybe this is a high, and he’s slowly puttering up the roller coaster tracks without noticing. And then Kon will crash, plummet, like he always does.

“Well, one of the hay feeders at the farm broke after being blown over by a storm. And someone bought all the two-by-twelves in the _entire town_ for a personal project or something, so I had to fly to the next city to get supplies,” he says, and Tim humors him with a small, soft smile.

As he sits back down, the two of them now a full foot apart rather than the scant inch, Tim pats Kon’s shoulder in a silent show of gratitude—and will it always tingle like this, send electricity down the lengths of his nerves every time they touch for the sake of touching—and Kon thinks, _But I can fly, can’t I?_

By the time they actually get to their slushies, fat droplets of water are running down the sides of the plastic cups, leaving rings of condensation where they’d been sitting for the past few minutes.

Tim jabs his Zesti cola a few times with his straw and takes a long sip. What follows is a small, happy sigh. “We voted you leader for a reason,” he tells Cassie with a smile.

“Eh, you do your part too,” Cassie says. “Who else is gonna foot the snack bill?”

“You are all eating me out of house and home,” Tim sniffs. “On that note, someone used my credit card to buy about forty dollars worth of Twizzlers. I’m making an educated guess and assuming Bart did it.”

Kon knows what that’s about, and he’s about to open his mouth to speak when Bart abruptly takes a seat next to Cassie. “Yeah, because I want Kon to use his heat vision to fuse all of them together.”

“Into one giant, continuous Twizzler,” Kon finishes, smacking his lips to savour the taste of sugar syrup. “How’s your knee?”

Bart wiggles his leg. “All good. Raven’s a lifesaver. Also, I heal fast.” He sticks his tongue out; the slurpee in his hand is three-quarters empty. Slurred, he adds, “My tongue is purple.”

Kon laughs and juts his cherry-red tongue out.

“Let me guess,” Tim says, “you want to see how fast you can eat that much licorice.”

“You _get_ me, dude,” Bart says. “So, how about it? In the name of speedster science?”

Cassie says, “Uh, I don’t know,” right as Tim pipes in with, “If you can reach the toilet bowl on time.”

There’s a beat, and then Cassie and Tim turn to look at each other, bright hazel staring into pale blue. Kon bites down on his lip.

With a shrug, Tim says, “We all know how to do the Heimlich maneuver.” 

Bart takes the dubious approval and runs with it, pumping his fist in a _yes_ gesture before holding it out in front of Kon. They bump knuckles.

There’s a brief lull where Bart takes a few moments to polish off the last of his grape slurpee, leaving only a hunk of white ice behind, and then he freefalls about twenty-four spots down from Kon’s list of favorite people.

It might be too fast for Tim and Cassie to catch, but Kon’s superspeed has improved markedly since his resurrection and it’s enough to catch the glimmer in Bart’s eyes that screams, _I’m ready to cause problems._

Bart at fourteen may have acted without regard for consequences because they had never mattered as a concept, but Bart at eighteen is perfectly aware of which dialogue tree options are the best pick to getting what he wants.

“How about you, Tim?” Bart says. Innocent enough, but Kon knows better. He _saw_ the look on Bart’s face. The eyes don’t lie. “Your suit got pretty shredded.”

Kon abruptly remembers that Tim isn’t wearing a shirt.

“Yeah, the Kevlar gave up on me pretty quick, but I’m alright,” Tim agrees, sloshing his drink back and forth. He makes a so-so motion. “Missed any major vessels. I’ll just have to sleep on my stomach for the next few days.”

“Yeah, it’d be pretty uncomfortable to put too much pressure on your stitches, for sure.” Bart’s feet tap the tile of the medbay with an inappropriate furor for a quarter past two in the morning. He rubs at his arms, making a show of chattering his teeth. “Man, it is still so _chilly_ in here. The emergency power supply is way weaker.”

Oh _no_. 

_I’m going to kill you, and it’s going to be slow_ , Kon mouths over Tim's shoulder, but Bart has already disappeared from the room.

In another second, he’s back, a bundle of fabric in his arms.

“Cozy up!” Bart tosses the garment; Tim catches it one-handed on instinct.

Cassie perks up; she suddenly doesn’t look so sleepy anymore.

“Is this Conner’s?” Tim asks, sounding perplexed. The sweatshirt is baggy even on _Kon_ , specifically bought so Conner Kent from Smallville looks frumpish, and, well, not athletic to the point that it warrants suspicion.

“Yeah,” he confirms, “I checked your room—” Bart’s such a lying liar—“and all I found was workout clothes, but this should be way warmer and comfier.”

Tim doesn’t say anything, still holding the sweatshirt up in front of him like he’s actually considering it. Holy fuck.

Then it’s apparently Cassie’s turn to butt in, because she says, “Guys, we still have morning training tomorrow, so we should all probably head to bed. I don’t know about you three, but I’m dead on my feet.”

Tim sets the sweatshirt down on his lap. “Yeah, of course. Though I should probably review the perimeter footage to see how our main generator got sabotaged first—ow.”

“ _We_ ,” Cassie says as Tim rubs his forehead, “are all going to bed.”

“The emergency generator isn’t a replacement,” Tim insists.

“We’ll survive the night,” Kon says, rolling his eyes. “Let’s all give ourselves a break, okay?”

“What Kon said.” Cassie is already backing out of the room.

Taking her cue, Bart follows with a hasty _goodnightsleeptight_ and suddenly Kon and Tim are the only two left in the medbay. Tim is still not wearing a fucking shirt.

He has the best and worst friends.

Kon can hear the clicks of the clock’s minute arm as it counts the seconds passing by in relative quiet, coupled by Tim’s measured breathing, the subtle rise and fall of his chest.

Finally, Tim mumbles, “Do you mind?”

“Mind what?”

“If I use this for the night,” is the tentative reply. “Uh, central heating’s gonna be down until at least tomorrow. And my circulation isn’t the best, so.”

Rather than following the immediate impulse of responding with _No, Tim, if you wear my clothes I’ll start crying blood. But, like, out of joy,_ Kon figures it’ll only be weird if one of them makes it so. What’s a bit of sharing between friends, right? “Sure, bud,” he says. “In fact, if you’re still cold, you’re welcome you visit me and leech off my body heat.”

“Uh-huh,” Tim deadpans. He stands, pulling the sweatshirt though his head as he rises.

“I’m serious,” Kon says. “My pecs are the only thing between you and a hot date with hypothermia.”

Tim snorts, swatting at Kon’s arm. “Real steel deal, huh?”

What. Is he flirting back? Is Tim flirting back? 

After a brief internal conflict, Kon lets himself look; his feelings will persist invariably of how much he deprives himself or not, so might as well.

Kon’s hand flies up to cover his grin; the sweatshirt makes _Kon_ look dowdy, but Tim is currently a box with a head and legs. Embarrassingly, the imagery still makes Kon’s heart go wild. The fabric dips around Tim’s collarbone; Kon wants to lean down and kiss the skin there, make Tim sigh and moan the way he always does in the kindest parts of Kon’s imagination.

As the medbay doors slide closed behind them and they make their way up to the residential wing of the tower, Kon averts his eyes.

What would Tim look like in something else Kon owns? One of his shirts—or his old jackets, even. Tim’s shoulders are broad enough that they might even be a tight fit, now. Kon could bury his nose into the crook of Tim’s neck, inhaling the scent of soap and leather while his hands sneak around the column of his torso. To feel the ripple of muscle under scarred skin, flickering under Kon’s touch. Kon could keep Tim safe. 

He has a sneaking suspicion that Tim will try to sneak in some late-night work regardless of what Cassie insists, but Kon’s not too certain he’s getting much sleep tonight, either.

Through his reverie, they exit the elevator, making it halfway down the hallway on pure muscle memory. Kon’s room is closest; seniority on the team plus _I-literally-died_ sympathy points earned him a generous array of options in picking a new room when he rejoined the Titans. He hadn’t been a fan of returning to his old quarters, instead choosing an eastward-facing room so he can rise with the sun in the mornings.

Tim’s room is down the hall, with a north-facing window. He’d even gone through the extra effort of installing blackout curtains.

He punches his passcode into the keypad and waits for the light to flash green. It’s good that the doorways are also wired to the standby generator, or they’d have had to bust down the doors to access their beds. Why not the central heating, too?

It’s almost as if Bart, Cassie and fate are out to get him.

“Well, uh.” Kon turns back around, rubbing the back of his neck. “G’night, Tim.”

Tim’s “Goodnight,” is hushed as his fingers fiddle with the sleeves of Kon’s sweatshirt. “I’ll return this tomorrow.”

“You do that,” Kon says. Heedlessly, one of his hands goes to twist the doorknob and while other makes contact with Tim’s head, and by the time Kon registers what his brain made him do he decides to commit and run his fingers though Tim’s inky black hair. Just once.

Tim shivers, and his heartbeat speeds up; Kon can hear the time intervals between contractions shorten to almost nothing, and then in the next moment it’s freakishly calm once more. 

“Goodnight,” Tim says again, softly, as Kon draws back.

“Goodnight,” Kon says.

“Thanks.” Lots of fidgeting. “For the stitches. And the clothes.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Sleep well?”

“Worry about yourself, Wonder Boy.”

Tim smiles at the jab. It’s the last thing Kon sees before he shuts the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (gets on soapbox) between tim and kon, kon is the coffee drinker; there’s a gag scene in superboy #83 where a very groggy kon is served decaf while working for cadmus and he spits it out. 
> 
> \+ bart’s injury is a reference to tt #2, where his right kneecap was shot. the damage was severe enough that he needed a prosthetic, so i’d like to think that it acts up every so often.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! leave a comment if you wish!
> 
> you can reach me on my tumblr under the same handle.


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